The claim was rejected by the NSW government. ''The NSW government has not signed an agreement with the federal government to introduce independent public schools,'' the state Education Minister Adrian Piccoli said. "We believe we have the balance right": Adrian Piccoli. Credit:Tamara Voninski ''We don't believe the research supports creating either charter schools or fully independent public schools. ''We believe we have the balance right between local authority and maintaining the benefits of collaboration and efficiency that come from a strong school system. We don't support having two types of public schools in NSW.'' It is unclear whether the NSW government - which has increased school autonomy in recent years - will be able to access the federal government's $70 million funding pool under its policies.

NSW principals already control up to 70 per cent of the school education budget under policies introduced by the O'Farrell government. Under the federal government plan, state education departments will decide which schools are given independent status. Independent public schools will have more power to select staff and allocate funding, but will have to teach the same curriculum and pay teachers the same amount. To back the government's claim NSW had signed up for the initiative, a spokesman for Mr Pyne provided Fairfax Media with a letter, dated December last year, from Mr Piccoli, which said: ''I look forward to working with you on the details [of the independent public schools program] over coming months.'' A leading authority on school education warned there was no conclusive evidence that increased school autonomy led to improvements in student performance. On Monday, Mr Pyne said: ''The more autonomous a school, the better the outcomes for students. This is because the more a principal and his or her leadership team have control over the destiny of their own school, the more that seems to lift the school performance.''

But the school education program director at the Grattan Institute, Ben Jensen, said the evidence that independent public schools produce better student outcomes was ''very mixed''. And if not carefully implemented, the policy could leave students worse off. ''If you just look at autonomy, the evidence on school improvement is, at best, very mixed,'' Mr Jensen said. ''Victoria has gone very far down the autonomous path - it was one of the first in the world to do so - while NSW has had a very centralised system and they have, essentially, the same results.'' The latest Program for International Student Assessment results show no significant difference in results for NSW and Victoria. Mr Jensen said increased autonomy was most effective when coupled with rigorous professional development for principals and other school leaders. Loading

He said it was a ''great sign'' the Abbott government plan had come with money attached, but added it was too early to tell if $70 million was enough to achieve the government's target of 1500 independent schools by 2017. Follow us on Twitter