The teachers Union have been out played. There's no other way to describe it. They have played their one and only trump card and then been left like shags on a rock with nothing else.
If they really wanted to be players in the game (which seems debatable once a Union gets involved) they should have come up with a much better set of "trumps". For instance (in no particular order):
* Refuse to administer the test (their only idea)
* Administer the test but not submit the results
* Administer the test but corrupt the results
* Administer the test to only their best student and then copy the results for every other student in the class. (Obviously detectable. But still makes a point)
* Administer the test and report only the results for the worst result in the class.
* Do the tests themselves and leave the students completely out of it.
* Report their results - as they honestly think they should be reported. (Be that whatever it may be)
* Ask the politicians to personally administer the tests.
* Ask the students parents to administer the tests and submit the results.
* etc.
There are so many options for civil disobedience but they chose none of them. Which really suggests that the Union chose none of them. At the end of the day this says more about the Australian Education Union than it does about anything else in this debacle.
At the end of all this, I actually like the compromise that they have all arrived at. I think Julia has gotten the result she wanted, the Union got to feel like they mattered and the teachers are under the illusion someone is listening to them. I don't seriously think anyone is going to listen to a consultative committee... but if it makes them feel better, its done its job.
Good to see a politician who can get a result. Even in the face of bargaining with a Union with so little a clue.
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