The Australian Education Union (AEU) has launched a war of words over the Federal Government’s latest education plan.

The union says the Coalition is disproportionately favouring private schools with the new funding model, but the Government says Labor would have gone even further.

The stoush erupted in the wake of a draft report by the Productivity Commission titled Education Evidence Base.

The report says education sector leaders must engage in more research into how outcomes can be improved, before committing any more money to schools.

The report says that despite a 14 per cen increase in spending per student over the past decade, overall performance has barely improved.

“Looking within the classroom, particularly teaching practices, is thus paramount to improving education outcomes across all schools and all students,” said Commissioner, Jonathan Coppel.

“We also know there are some schools whose students perform better than expected compared with similar schools.”

The AEU commissioned its own analysis by education funding expert Dr Jim McMorrow, which it says clearly shows the Coalition’s lack of commitment to needs-based funding.

Dr McMorrow’s review claimed the plan would see schools $5.28 billion worse of from 2016/17 to 2019/20 compared with Labor’s Gonski model.

It said that of the extra $1.2 billion the Turnbull Government has pledged over four year, 38 per cent will go to public schools while 62 per cent is earmarked for private institutions.

“The next Education Ministers Council is on September 23,and we need State and Territory Governments to stand up to any attempt by the Coalition to end Gonski, and to fight to ensure that schools funding remains based on need,” AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe said.

“Malcolm Turnbull wants to take us back to a system where schools are funded by sector, not need, which will leave our children worse off.”

Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham has hit back, accusing the AEU of making “politically motivated” claims “based on assumptions from negotiations that have not even commenced yet”.

“Official government analysis of the current Gonski agreement – which is exactly as agreed by the previous Labor Government – from 2014 to 2017 showed the Commonwealth Government had committed 63% of its funds to the non-government sector over the ‘Gonski’ years – more than that predicted in the report,” he said.

“Politically motivated reports, like the AEU’s contribution today, provide nothing more than a distraction from the real conversation that we need to be having about how record Federal Government funding for schools is spent to ensure we are investing in evidence-based reforms that drive improved outcomes for Australian students.”

Senator Birmingham said the AEU and Labor “ought to stop being just one-trick ponies” claiming more funding fixes every problem in education”.

“The Turnbull Government has committed to working with states and territories and the non-government sector to establish a new funding deal post-2017 that is tied to evidence-based initiatives and will see funding distribution informed by need,” he said.