Home / Lectures / Joshua L. Glazer, George Washington University
The Grit and the Grind: Politics, Legitimacy, and Educational Change
Joshua L. Glazer, George Washington University
Description
Semester:
- Fall 2026
Speakers:
Lecture Time:
Fri, October 30, 2026 @ 1:30 pm to 3:00 pm
Lecture Location:
R2240, Ross building
Speaker Webpage(s):
No speaker websites available.
Introduced By:
Yen-Kai Huang
Abstract
School reform depends on sustained work to strengthen instruction, develop professional capacity, and build organizations that can learn. Yet the political conditions that make this work possible are often unstable. How do reform initiatives establish sufficient legitimacy to support improvement, and how does the design of reforms strengthen or undermine that legitimacy? Drawing on the primary themes explored in The Grit and the Grind: Building High-Performing Education Systems in an Era of Polarization (University of Chicago Press, 2026), this talk examines the reciprocal relationship between politics, legitimacy, and organizational change. The talk explores how the design of educational reforms can earn or erode support among educators and communities, and the consequences for the sustained work of organizational learning and improvement. The central argument is that while legitimacy helps constitute the conditions under which organizational learning and improvement become possible, legitimacy, itself, is tied to the degree to which reform efforts resonate with local identities and collective memory. The talk uses educational reform to explore the broader question of how politics and organizational learning interact, and what it takes to sustain the slow, uncertain work of institutional change.
Recording & Additional Notes
No recordings available.
Dr. Glazer’s research and teaching examine multiple approaches to improving under-performing schools in high-poverty, urban environments. He is currently directing two multi-year studies into school turnaround. The first examines the Tennessee Achievement School District, in which the state removes underperforming schools from local control and then authorizes charter schools to develop and implement designs for improvement. The second study, also in Tennessee, investigates the efforts of Shelby County Schools, which includes Memphis, to devise and direct its own improvement initiative by using the resources and capacity of the district to improve over twenty schools that rank near the bottom of the state in academic performance. In addition, Dr. Glazer is the principal investigator for a program of research looking at research-practice partnerships in Baltimore and New York City.
Dr. Glazer has published on a wide range of topics, including the replication of effective school improvement models, the role of external interveners in large-scale reform, the challenges confronting charter management organizations that operate neighborhood schools, and the dynamics of race and class in state takeover of schools, among others. He is a co-author of Improvement by Design, which examines three prominent comprehensive school reform programs in the U.S., and co-editor of Choosing Charters: Better Schools or More Segregation? His work has been featured in op-ed pieces, newspaper articles, and blogs.
Prior to joining the faculty of the George Washington University, Dr. Glazer worked for five years at the Rothschild Foundation in Jerusalem, Israel as a program officer and program director in the education division. Dr. Glazer holds a B.A. in European history from Brandeis University and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.