There is no compelling case to cut funding to "over-funded" private schools and redistribute the money to disadvantaged schools, Labor education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek says.



In an interview with Fairfax Media, Ms Plibersek said it was "absolutely the right decision" for the Gillard government to promise that no school would be worse off under the Gonski funding reforms - a commitment that a Gonski review panelist, Ken Boston, says blew out the cost of the reforms and entrenched inequalities between schools.

The Education Minister, Simon Birmingham, has said he has "deliberately" not made the same promise, leaving room to cut funding for some schools in a new funding deal from 2018 onwards.



The Grattan Institute released a report this week calling for the federal government to freeze funding to schools classed as over-funded and redistribute the money to schools which are below their Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) - the funding benchmark at the heart of the Gonski model.

Asked whether funding should be redistributed from wealthy to low-income schools, Ms Plibersek said: "People find it a compelling thing to talk about but I think it misses the point entirely.

"You're talking about a very small number of schools.