Former education minister Chris Carter has accused North Shore secondary schools of running out of money because they overspend on specialist teachers to attract more students.
Many school boards and principals say the Government does not cover their costs and relies on parents and fundraising to make up the difference,
especially in high-decile areas.
But Mr Carter, who was Minister of Education until the last election and is now Labour's education spokesman, has pointed the finger back at a group of schools that publicly complained about underfunding last year.
"To be quite honest that's the problem with the North Shore high schools. They'd all employed extra staff based on their foreign fee-paying students giving them that extra revenue, because ... it's the biggest concentration of high-decile high schools in one area in the country and they're essentially in competition with each other for students.
"So they'd overextended themselves, parental donations were sliding, international student fees were falling - so somebody had to be blamed for the schools employing fancy ballet teachers, fancy swimming teachers, extra PE teachers, extra support for special needs.
"So of course it was me, it was the wicked Labour Government ... it had to be somebody's fault instead of the schools for making some rather unwise decisions about their funding."
Northcote College principal Vicki Barrie, who led the campaign last year, said Mr Carter was ignoring clear evidence of underfunding.
