Whatever the motives, the Gonski backflip by Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne has left the country with a failing schools system still in need of reform, writes Barrie Cassidy.

Good work guys. Gonski's gone. Now what?

Years of work by an expert panel, drawing on thousands of submissions, has come to nothing.

For that furious educators and parents can blame the Rudd and Gillard governments for taking too long to address a decline in standards that the OECD now confirms is only getting worse.

And they can blame the Abbott government for finally throwing some of the most meticulous homework ever undertaken into the bin.

The mood in the media all week has been that somehow the Abbott/Pyne backflip solved a problem. It did nothing of the kind.

The problem was not so much money as a commitment to reform. That commitment has been shredded.

The Abbott Government threw new funding at Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory without demanding anything in return.

They cashed up the new states without demanding that they in turn increase their own funding and that they commit to additional funding for the disadvantaged.

In fact there is nothing to stop the states ignoring altogether needs-based funding, or even worse, re-directing education funding to other areas. Though, the government says, that would be "poor form".

Some will argue that the five who signed on before the election are bound to meet the Gonski criteria.

But why do you think those states are not complaining that their funding is tied, while the latecomers can do what they like with their money?

Because they have been given a nod and wink, that's why. A nod and a wink that the new government has no intention of enforcing any restrictions placed on the states by the previous government.

As the Education Minister, Christopher Pyne, so transparently put it, "We would expect the signatory states to keep the promises that they've made but, at the end of the day, that is a matter for those sovereign jurisdictions."

Days after the backflip, parents are left wondering what last week was all about.

Why did Pyne do what he did? Parents can only speculate.

Demonstrably, neither Abbott nor Pyne ever liked the Gonski reforms. On top of that, just for a few fleeting and futile days they thought they might be able to save some money and blame Labor. And maybe all along they had in mind making it easier for the states to improve the deal for private schools.

Whatever the motives, the country is now left with a failing system still in need of reform.

Who knows what will replace the current system, and who knows how long that will take?

Behind all the rhetoric this week, two contributions stood out.

The Prime Minister said on Sunday: "We are going to keep the promise that we actually made, not the promise that some people thought that we made." Brilliant. A quote for all seasons.

And the second was Pyne's boast that he had increased Labor's funding, only to argue that money is not the answer.

Both efforts would be marked "fail" by any examiner.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of ABC programs Insiders and Offsiders. View his full profile here.