The nation's richest schools face a hit to their taxpayer funding after Labor leader Bill Shorten offered to work with the federal government on over-resourcing.
But Education Minister Simon Birmingham is not convinced the opposition's offer is for real.
Pushed on the question of whether schools getting taxpayer money above the per-student standard should have their funding reduced, Mr Shorten said he was willing to work with the government.
"I don't want to make the private versus public some sort of partisan or party-political issue," he said on Wednesday.
However, if the government wanted to look at whether some schools receiving well in excess of their resourcing standard should have further funding increases limited, Labor would consider the evidence.
"We will work with the government," Mr Shorten said.
The opposition leader was responding to Gonski review panellist Ken Boston, who says disadvantaged students will continue to be denied the resources they need because politicians are "fluffing around" on funding.
"I was far from convinced this morning in Bill Shorten's triple train wreck of an interview that he had any real comprehension of what Dr Ken Boston was talking about," Senator Birmingham told AAP.
"If that is a change in the Labor Party's position to work more constructively with us to make sure we get the best bang for our education dollars in the future then I welcome that."
Labor insists its position has not changed, with education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek telling reporters within the past fortnight she would be willing to look at any specific government proposals about over-funded schools.
"You can't trust the Liberals on schools - remember Malcolm Turnbull's proposal to cut all federal funding from public schools?" she told AAP on Wednesday.
The Commonwealth is in the middle of negotiations with the states over a new school funding deal, which has to start in 2018.
It is expected to include commonwealth demands for measures such as better teacher training and tests for year 1 students in exchange for funding.
Senator Birmingham has previously seized on comments by Dr Boston that existing arrangements are a corruption of what the Gonski panel recommended.
This week, Dr Boston said neither side of politics had come to grips with what needs-based funding really meant.
"We are on a path to nowhere," the former director-general of the NSW Department of Education said in a speech on Tuesday.
"Both the government and the opposition are fluffing around at the margins of the issue, and neither appears to understand the magnitude of the reform that is needed or - if so - to have the capacity to tackle it."
Dr Boston said schools funding in Australia was still based on "top down" political negotiation between Canberra, state governments, the Catholic and private school sectors, unions and church leaders.
The funding architecture should be simplified by making an individual school the basis for funding, he said.
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