Dr. Joshua Glazer and Colleagues Publish Commentary on Education and Polarization
Dr. Joshua L. Glazer
Dr. Joshua L. Glazer
Professor, Education Policy
School: Graduate School of Education and Human Development
Department: Educational Leadership, Cross-Disciplinary
Contact:
Email:
Dr. Joshua L. Glazer
Office Phone:
(202) 994-8724
Dr. Glazer’s research and teaching examine the organizational and political conditions that enable educational improvement. His book, The Grit and the Grind (University of Chicago Press), draws on extensive research on Tennessee’s Achievement School District and Shelby County Schools’ district-led turnaround initiative to explore how political legitimacy, local history, and reform design shape opportunities for organizational learning and sustained improvement.
A member of the Forum on Democracy and Education at the George Washington University, Dr. Glazer leads a multi-site research project examining the educational and political dynamics of teaching civics in Virginia high schools. The study investigates classroom practice, how schools and districts organize and support civic education, and how educators interpret and navigate their local social and political contexts. He is also engaged in a research partnership with Israel’s Ministry of Education examining implementation of the revised middle school mathematics curriculum and the conditions that support instructional change across diverse educational settings.
Dr. Glazer has published on school improvement, large-scale reform, charter schools, research-practice partnerships, and the dynamics of race and class in state school takeovers. He is a co-author of Improvement by Design, which examines three prominent comprehensive school reform programs in the United States, and co-editor of Choosing Charters: Better Schools or More Segregation?
Before joining GW, Dr. Glazer served for five years as a program officer and program director in the education division of the Rothschild Foundation in Jerusalem. He holds a B.A. in European history from Brandeis University and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.
Ph.D., University of Michigan
B.A., Brandeis University
- Education Policy
- Charter Schools
- School Improvement
- Improvement Networks
- Continuous Improvement
- School Turnaround
- State Takeovers
- Educational Professionalism
Glazer, Joshua L.; Massell, Diane; Winchell Lenhoff, Sarah; Larbi-Cherif, Adrian; Egan, Cori; Taylor, James E.; Ison, Ashley; Deleveaux, Joelle; and Millington, Zachary. (2020). District-led School Turnaround: Aiming for Ambitious and Equitable Instruction in Shelby County’s iZone. CPRE Research Reports.
Glazer, J. L., Massell, D., & Malone, M. (2019). Charter Schools in Turnaround: Competing Institutional Logics in the Tennessee Achievement School District. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 41(1), 5–33.
Glazer, J. L., Groth, L., and Beuche, B. (2019). Opportunities and challenges for NGOs amid competing institutional logics. Journal of Educational Administration, https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-10-2018-0191.
Glazer, J. L. and Egan, C. (2018). The ties that bind: building civic capacity for the Tennessee Achievement School District. American Educational Research Journal, 55(5), 928-964.
Glazer, J. L. and Peurach, D.J. (2015). Occupational governance in education: the logic and leverage of epistemic communities. Harvard Educational Review, (85).
Massell, D.,Glazer, J. L., & Malone, M. (2016). “This is the big leagues” Charter-led turnaround in a non-charter world.Tennessee Consortium on Research, Evaluation & Development. Vanderbilt Peabody College. Retrieved from https://www.cpre.org/sites/default/files/massell_glazer_malone_tncred-bigleaguesreport_062416-2_1.pdf.
Glazer, J. L., & Egan, C. (2016). Research into Tennessee’s achievement school district: Race, history, and the dilemma of public engagement.Tennessee Consortium on Research, Evaluation & Development. Vanderbilt Peabody College. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/295548605_THE_TENNESSEE_ACHIEVEMENT_SCHOOL_DISTRICT_RACE_HISTORY_AND_THE_DILEMMA_OF_PUBLIC_ENGAGEMENT.
Glazer, J. L., Massell, D., & Malone, M. (2015). Research into Tennessee’s achievement school district: Autonomy, incentives, and guidance for providers.Tennessee Consortium on Research, Evaluation & Development. Vanderbilt Peabody College. Retrieved from https://www.cpre.org/sites/default/files/policybrief/2049_asdreportglazer020915.pdf.
- June 2025 - Dr. Joshua Glazer was a guest on the Education by Design podcast. Listen to his episode, titled, "Joshua Glazer on "Improvement by Design: Rethinking How Schools Change." The Education by Design podcast explores the architecture of learning environments—how schools are designed, not just operated—how culture is disrupted to make way for innovation and reaching potential.
- September 2024 - Dr. Joshua Glazer was asked to provide his expertise in the ConsumerAffairs article, "The best states for public education in 2024."
- April 2024 - Dr. Joshua Glazer, together with Adrian Larbi-Cherif and GSEHD alumna Ashley Ison (master's, Education Policy), published “Continuous Improvement in Urban Districts: Bringing Environments Back In,” in the American Journal of Education.
- January 2024 - Memphis Commercial Appeal/The Tennessean quoted Joshua Glazer, associate professor of educational leadership, in the article “The debate over Tennessee's public schools can get heated. Here's how we got here,’’ by Rachel Wegner. Dr. Glazer spent years studying the public perception of the Achievement School District in Tennessee and the racial and historical implications that surround it, especially in Memphis.
- October 2023 - Dr. Joshua L. Glazer, was quoted in the Baltimore Fish Bowl's article, "Great Talk: Panel of experts discuss the current state and future of education." Dr. Glazer participated in the Great Talk lecture, "How to Educate our Children for their Best Future in a Changing World."
- October 2023 - Dr. Joshua L. Glazer, was interviewed for the JMoreLiving.com article, "Great Talk Inc. Presents Panel Discussion on Educating Today's Children."
- October 4, 2023 - Dr. Joshua Glazer joined a panel of experts at a Great Talk event hosted by The Alexander Grass Humanities Institute at Johns Hopkins University. The talk was titled, "How to Educate our Children For Their Best Future in a Changing World."
- August 2023 - Drs. Matthew Shirrell and Joshua Glazer, together with Dr. Megan Duff and GSEHD alumna Dr. Dryw Freed (Ed.D., Education Policy), published an article entitled, “The Winds of Changes: How Research Alliances Respond to and Manage Shifting Field-Level Logics,” in American Educational Research Journal.
- August 2023 - Drs. Joshua Glazer and Matthew Shirrell, together with Dr. Megan Duff and GSEHD alumna Dr. Dryw Freed (Ed.D., Education Policy), published an article entitled, "Walking a Tightrope: Navigating Principal-Agent Dilemmas in Research-Practice Partnerships in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis" in the journal, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis (EEPA).
- March 2023 - NJ.com quoted Joshua Glazer, associate professor of educational leadership, in the article “A stake in the heart of educational equity | Editorial,’’ by the Editorial Board.
- December 2022 - Quoted in The Philadelphia Inquirer article, "First N.J. standardized test scores since the pandemic show students still struggling."