Norm Fruchter

Norm Fruchter directs the Community Involvement Program of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. Previously he directed New York University's Institute for Education and Social Policy (IESP). Fruchter founded IESP in 1995, in collaboration with the deans of NYU's Steinhardt School of Education and Wagner School of Public Service, to improve public education so that all students, particularly in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, could obtain a just and equitable education and participate effectively in a democratic society.

Fruchter has served as a senior consultant with the Academy for Educational Development and Advocates for Children of New York; director of the Institute for Citizen Involvement in Education in New Jersey; co-founder and co-director of Independence High School in Newark, an alternative high school for dropouts; and, for ten years, was an elected school board member in Brooklyn's District 15. He holds a BA from Rutgers University and an MEd from Teachers College, Columbia University.

He has published extensively in the field of education policy and equity; his latest book, Urban Schools, Public Will, has just been published by Teachers College Press. He has also written two novels and directed several award-winning documentary films.

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