"I’m gonna do it!!"

Those were the words that came out of Luc Schuster’s mouth on an evening in early June when he decided he would be a candidate for Cambridge School Committee.

And while some Green-Rainbows in Cambridge didn’t feel the party should run a candidate in the 2005 election, it was clear to Luc and myself that this campaign would be different from all the earlier MRGRA campaigns.

Never before had a life long Cambridge resident run for Cambridge public office as a Green. Never before had a graduate of the Cambridge public schools and a former teacher in the Cambridge Public Schools run for Cambridge office as a Green.

Never before had campaign team been comprised of young, energetic life-long Cambridge residents. Clearly this time things were different.

I remember “flyering” at our first City of Cambridge event, the City Dance Party in front of City Hall in Central Square. There were Luc and Matt Nelson—our events and door-to-door coordinator, Max McMahon—our treasurer, and myself—Luc’s campaign manager. We were all nervous about talking to the public about the state of the Cambridge Schools and how Luc could make them better.

After that night however, two things were clear. People in Cambridge thought the schools could be much better, and people thought Luc Schuster could be the person to turn things around.

People were concerned about military recruiters in our schools—Luc had worked in Concord, New Hampshire as a youth organizer fighting against recruiters in schools.

People wanted to close the achievement gap between high performing and under-performing students—Luc teaches at GED Plus in Roxbury’s Dudley Square, a program that works with students under-served by public education.

People wanted to minimize the effects of standardized testing on our schools—many of Luc’s students either dropped out or were "pushed out" of the Boston Public Schools because of the MCAS exam.

Luc and our campaign team had many of the major issues covered. It became clear to to us early on that this was a campaign we could win.

Our campaign team developed goals that we not only wanted for our schools, but felt were vital to the over-arching goals of the Green-Rainbow Party. Now that Luc has been elected to office, our hope is to make the campaign platform a reality.