Norman Fruchter

Prior to becoming a member of Newsreel which was founded in 1967, Fruchter and Robert Machover made 'Troublemakers', an award-winning documentary about an organizing effort by members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)in the Black wards of Newark, New Jersey.

From 1968 to 1972, Newsreel produced sixty protest films, in New York and then in California. [Robert] Kramer moved to California and participated in the West Coast collectives movement, teaching for a while in San Francisco. In 1969, Kramer, Norman Fruchter and John Douglas produced People's War for Newsreel, shooting in North Vietnam during American bombing.[5]

As part of their mission to instigate social change, members of Newsreel would present films to political organizations and community groups across the United States.[6] The retrospective, Exit Art / The First World had Newsreel members Norman Fruchter, Roz Payne and Lynn Phillips discuss the films.[7] He was a member of SDS along with Tom Hayden, Jesse Allen, Robert Kramer, also full-time organizers for the group: Carol Glassman; Terry Jefferson; Constance Brown; Corinna Fales; and Derek Winans. He was investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee.[8] He co-founded and co-directed Independence High School, an alternative high school for drop-outs in Newark, New Jersey, throughout most of the 1970s.

He recommended Christine Choy to the Newsreel group, after meeting her at Ironbound neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey.[9][10]

He was a member of School Board 15, in Brooklynfrom 1983-94. He helped to form Campaign for Fiscal Equity, which sued the city of New York over inadequate school funding. He co-founded and headed the Institute for Education and Social Policy at New York Universityfrom 1987-1996.[11] He commented on the Gates Foundation:

The Gates Foundation has given an enormous boost to small schools," Fruchter says. "Because of the extent of the funding, they have leverage with school systems that no one else has. They have helped make small schools a part of districtwide reform agendas in a way that wasn't possible before.[12]

He commented on Mayor Michael Bloomberg's reforms:

Norman Fruchter, director of the Community Involvement Program at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and the author of a report highlighting problems afflicting New York's middle schools, said he did not think the changes would improve the situation in those schools. Autonomy is not a virtue in and of itself, he said. "If you're living in an abandoned building, you have lots of autonomy," he said. "What you need isn't autonomy" but help.... After leaving the Annenberg Institute, Fruchter worked as a Senior Consultant to NYU's Metro Center from 2016-2019. His latest education book was 'Urban Schools, Public Will, from Teachers College Press, 2009. While there have been some gains in elementary scores, said Fruchter, it's "not translating into middle school gain." The school system, he said, "has not figured out how to build conceptual skills at the eighth grade level."[13]

He married Rachel G. Fruchter (d. July 12, 1997), who was member of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology State University of New York for nearly 25 years.[14] After her untimely death he married Heather Lewis, a former Newsreel member and school board colleague. Fruchter has two children, Lev (born 1967) and Chenda (born 1968) and four grandchildren: Zoe and Ella Fruchter and Jack and Benjy Fives.

• Coat Upon a Stick. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. 1962. ASIN B000O3Q0HU.
• Single File. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf. 1970.

• "Restructuring and Multiculturalism: A New Alliance To Shift the Power Balance?". Celebrating Diverse Voices: Progressive Education and Equity. Thought and Practice Series. Corwin Press. 1993. ISBN 0-8039-6039-5.
• John Mollenkopf; Ken Emerson, eds. (2001). Rethinking the Urban Agenda. Century Foundation. p. 248. ISBN 0-87078-465-X.

• Fruchter, Norman (May–June 1961). "Jews and others". New Left Review. New Left Review. I (9).
• Fruchter, Norman (March–April 1961). "Where is the ginger man?". New Left Review. New Left Review. I (8).

Profile of The Ginger Man's author J. P. Donleavy.

• Fruchter, Norman (March–April 1960). "The Savage Eye". New Left Review. New Left Review. I (2).

Review of the film The Savage Eye.

• Fruchter, Norman (February 1972). "SDS: In and Out of Context". Liberation. David Dellinger and A. J. Muste.

Cited in: Breines, Wini (1989), "Politics as community: participatory democracy", in Breines, Wini (ed.), Community and organization in the New Left, 1962-1968: the great refusal, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, pp. 61–62, ISBN 9780813514031. Preview.

• Fruchter, Norman (May 1971). "Movement Propaganda and the Culture of the Spectacle". Liberation. David Dellinger and A. J. Muste: 4–17.

Cited in: Lazere, Donald (1987), "Introduction: entertainment as social control", in Lazere, Donald (ed.), American media and mass culture: left perspectives, Berkeley, California: University of California Press, p. 9, ISBN 9780520044968. Preview.

• Race Against Prime Time - ( Narrator(- Narration) / 1984 / Released / Albany Video )
• The People's War - ( Director / 1970 / Released / )[16]
• WE GOT TO LIVE HERE, Robert Machover & Norman Fruchter, (1965, 16mm B&W/sound, 20 min.)
• Troublemakers, Robert Machover & Norman Fruchter, (1966, 16mm B&W/sound, 54 min.)[17]
• FALN (1965), Peter Gessner, Norman Fruchter and Robert Machover, Robert Kramer
• Summer '68 (1969)[18][19]