Education leaders say the federal government is walking away from a funding model that would have helped level the playing field for the nation's most disadvantaged kids.
NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli on Friday led an unlikely coalition of state and territory schools ministers - from Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria and the ACT - to call for a needs-based funding system in line with recommendations adopted by the previous Labor government from the Gonski schools funding review.
But as talks with these states faltered, Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne was standing firm, saying his government intends to come up with a more equitable and uniform funding model in early 2014.
Australian Education Union federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said Mr Pyne was abandoning a model that had taken years and 7000 submissions to get right.
"This is an extraordinary day for public schools," he told AAP.
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"We've now had a review that delivered for this country a funding system, as implemented by the previous (Gillard) government, that was sector blind and aimed to deliver the resources to tackle disadvantage.
"Christopher Pyne is walking away from that, and in doing so, walking away from public school students across Australia."
Mr Gavrielatos said already-disadvantaged students, who mainly attend public schools, stood to lose the most.
Rachael Sowden from the NSW Federation of Parents & Citizens Associations said parents who voted for the coalition at the last federal election thinking they would deliver Gonski-style reforms would now be "horrified".
"We will advocate all the way to make sure that a fair and equitable system is in place, not something drawn up on the back of an envelope," she said.
Lila Mularczyk, principal of a public high school in western Sydney, said the carefully laid plans of principals around the country were now in "total disarray".
"Disappointment is an understatement," she told reporters.
"It is appalling that our students, under the coalition's alleged `student-first' policy, are now being put back.
"Parents, principals and teachers will certainly remember this."
