Those running for seats on the Minneapolis Board of Education this year face daunting issues: Widening achievement gaps between students, schools being closed for declining enrollment and budget shortages are just a start. Voters want to know how those candidates are going to help more students succeed, with less.
So when Richard Mammen decided to run for one of the at-large seats on the board, he looked to an energetic but unlikely political pro to run his campaign: A 19-year-old who fled the public schools.
On Tuesday, David Gilbert-Pederson sat at a coffee shop in the Seward neighborhood, where he grew up, and plotted Mammen's strategy on a legal pad. There was literature to get out, signs to pound. At 5'2," with a boyish face and big grin, he looked much younger than the college students sitting nearby.
While most of his former classmates at South High School were enjoying a gorgeous summer day or getting ready to go off to college, Gilbert-Pederson was in the chase, and on message.
"This hasn't just been about Dick," he said with authority. "This is about the kids."
Gilbert-Pederson is one of the thousands of young foot soldiers across the political universe carrying the rucksacks of the political parties. In an age of distrust and anger over politics (and I think you can say this at just about any time), they are the ones who believe in the possibilities of public service. They have not become jaded by political subterfuge or disenfranchised by social stasis.
Yet.
Gilbert-Pederson was adopted from the Philippines when he was a baby. His father, a librarian, and mother, who works in the public schools, are good citizens who vote and volunteer but not political activists, he said. He joined his first political campaign at age 12, when he made signs for Paul Wellstone's U.S. Senate campaign. After Wellstone died in a plane crash, Gilbert-Pederson began showing up to stuff envelopes almost every day after school, and he's become somewhat of a fixture in DFL circles.
