A NSW Liberal MP has contradicted government policy by calling for the creation of fully publicly funded independent ''charter'' schools in NSW.
Matt Kean, the Member for Hornsby, said some ''radical options'' needed to be considered in the federal government's review of schools funding.
A Sydney businessman, David Gonski, who is heading the review, will release tomorrow the findings of four research studies his committee has commissioned.
He told NSW Parliament that as a Liberal, he did not believe ''the radical reforms we need in our education system can come from a centralised system run out of Sydney or Canberra''.
''Personally, I would like to see a debate about charter schools occur in NSW,'' he said.
''Charter schools are state-funded community schools, accessible to all for no additional compulsory contribution and run by local boards, while meeting minimum standards set down by the state. In other words, while the state continues the funding, the governance and running of the school remains in community hands.''
Mr Kean's proposal echoes that of the chief executive officer of Christian Schools Australia, Stephen O'Doherty, who has also called on the NSW government and the Gonski inquiry to consider adopting the charter school model.
Mr Kean said the school principal and not the Department of Education should choose new teachers to avoid ''arbitrary quotas or requirements set by head office''.
The Minister for Education, Adrian Piccoli, ruled out the proposal yesterday, saying the state government ''is not going down the route of charter schools''.
A newly released NSW Department of Education paper called ''Raising achievement for all: complex challenges'', refers to a Stanford University study of 2403 charter schools which found 37 per cent performed significantly worse than public schools in improving maths performance. It also found 46 per cent of charter schools performed no better or worse than public schools.
Christian Schools Australia and the Anglican School Corporation are lobbying for a fairer share of funding for their schools which receive relatively less funding than many similar Catholic schools.
Catholic schools have asked the Gonski inquiry to increase recurrent funding to help them close the gap between the average income level of Catholic schools and government schools ''to ensure Catholic schools remain affordable and accessible to families in all regions and all socio-economic circumstances''.
