Going into last night’s Cambridge School Committee election, one of Patricia M. Nolan ’80’s campaign advisers told her not to count on success. “Almost no one wins the first time,” Ethel Klein, who now works as a pollster in New York, told the rookie challenger. But defying conventional wisdom, Nolan came out above all other candidates, as she and 28-year-old Cambridge teacher Luc D. Schuster unseated incumbents in an election process that rarely favors the underdog.

The turnover comes in the wake of heavy criticism of Cambridge schools’ recent performance. With local test scores hanging surprisingly low considering the city’s high expenditures per student, the newly elected Committee will face a steep challenge over the course of its term.

Before launching her campaign, Nolan worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Co. At Harvard, she was active in the Radcliffe Union of Students and the South Africa Solidarity Committee—which urged Harvard to divest from the apartheid state.

“I thought she was leading the revolution. Then I thought she sold out to be a capitalist mogul,” said Klein, who advised her thesis on “female consciousness.” “And it turns out she is neither.”

Her campaign was not without controversy. On the morning of election day, residents in several neighborhoods discovered flyers bearing the message, “Vote NO on NOLAN!!”

The flyer featured a drawing of a Nolan-like figure with a thought bubble reading, “mine, mine, mine.”

“Vote for me because you’ll never ever have to think for yourself again!!” the pamphlet said.

Nolan said she was unfazed by the last-minute negative campaign.

“I can only think it’s someone who is angry,” she said. “It’s not issues-based, and I’ve run an issues-based campaign.”

On hearing her victory announced at the Cambridge Senior Center last night, she began jumping through the halls of the building.

“It’s all about the kids and the schools,” Nolan cried as she leaped.

She immediately phoned home, hoping to pass on the good news to her two children, who attend the Cambridge public bilingual school Amigos.

“Is there any chance I will wake up and find out that the computer ran the wrong program?” she asked in surprise.

Supporters present at the vote-count were quick to congratulate the underdog winner.

“I like your energy,” 12-term School Committee member Alfred B. Fantini said to Nolan. “And I love that consulting-analysis background.”

Prior to the vote count, the enthusiastic and soft-spoken Schuster, now the only teacher on the School Committee, said he planned to serve the Cambridge school system whether elected or not.

“I’m going to be a full-time teacher and be on the School Committee, or I am going to be a full-time teacher,” he said.

Together, Nolan, the revolutionary-cum-mogul, and Schuster, the bright-eyed school teacher, unseated incumbents Marc C. McGovern and Ben Lummis.

Both newcomers were critical of the current School Committee. Schuster described Cambridge school administrators as being “in panic mode” because of recent low scores on standardized tests.

“Given the budget, city, kids, and teachers, we should be the pride of the state,” said Nolan.

Replacing Lummis and McGovern—both additions to the Committee in 2003—Nolan and Schuster join reelected political veterans Fantini, Joseph G. Grassi, Richard Harding, Jr., and Nancy Walser.