Glenn Savage is an Associate Professor at the University of Western Australia, where he is Director of the Future Schools Policy Lab. Glenn is a leading researcher and public commentator on education policy. His recent book, ‘The Quest for Revolution in Australian Schooling Policy’ (Routledge 2021), provides a detailed history of schooling reform in the Australian federation and offers a strong critique of standards-based reform. His book argues that system leaders need to move beyond technocratic approaches that seek to align schooling practices to common bodies of evidence based on claims about “what works”. Instead, energy should be focused on building organic and local networks of evidence creation and knowledge sharing.

Glenn began his career as a music journalist, after which he became a secondary English teacher and worked in diverse school settings in Australia and England. Motivated by a desire to examine the politics of educational inequality, he pursued an academic pathway, which led him to develop a critical interest in how knowledge and evidence are used in wide-scale system reform. He currently leads an Australian Research Council project that is examining the role of parents and community members in school decision-making. In late 2022, Glenn will serve as a visiting fellow at Durham University’s Institute of Advanced Study, where his research will critically examine reforms that seek to revolutionise education through the introduction of “21st Century models” of schooling.