The poll of 1261 people, commissioned by the Australian Education Union (AEU), found 88 per cent agreed that increasing public education funding was something Australia needed to do now.
About two thirds thought current resourcing for public schools was too low.
However, about ninety per cent thought the level of private school funding was about right or too high.
The Auspoll survey, released on Sunday, looked at public attitudes towards Australia's education system and the Gonski school funding review.
The review recommended an extra injection of at least $5 billion a year from all governments combined and an overhaul of the way school funding was calculated.
Survey respondents thought ignoring the report would harm children and their job prospects as well as Australia's future and international competitiveness.
Respondents said the most important uses for extra funding would be to hire specialist teachers to help struggling students and to reduce the number of students in a class.
The poll also looked at the political benefits, finding about the same proportion of people said their opinion of Labor would improve if it implemented Gonski (47 per cent) as would stay the same (45 per cent).
If Labor did not act on the study, a third would not change their opinion while 56 per cent said their opinion would worsen.
Union president Angelo Gavrielatos said in a statement: "We need our politicians in Canberra to lead the way on this by committing to the extra funding and making Gonski law this year."
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