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The school district superintendent arrested by ICE this week lied about attending MIT and was the subject of two sex discrimination lawsuits.
And he is an illegal alien.
And that's only the beginning.
Snappy dresser Ian Andre Roberts, 51, was fired by Des Moines Public Schools after it emerged that he was in the US and working illegally and had been avoiding a deportation order.
Roberts spent over 20 years bouncing around the nation’s education system, holding top posts from coast to coast, but also proved controversial.
“He ruined our district for three years,” a former colleague in the state says. “He was very smooth, affable, but the overarching feeling you got from him was smoke and mirrors, mystique.”
Disappointing, but not surprising.
Be informed, not misled.
Via the New York Post:
Former colleagues told The Post that Roberts was a shady figure and a pathological liar. They said they felt he was hired because of his diversity, equity, and inclusion bona fides — and claimed that once on the job, he did little work.
“He was a player. He liked the women,” a source who knew Roberts, who asked not to be named, told The Post.
Another source expressed concern to the school board in Pennsylvania that Roberts might not be a legal resident based on casual comments he had made — but their concern was ignored, they said.
Reports indicate Roberts has not been legally allowed to work in the US since at least 2020, when his employment authorization expired.
For years, Roberts also falsely claimed he had a doctorate from Baltimore’s Morgan State University. A school official told the Des Moines Register that he did not obtain a degree from that school, either.
Roberts was superintendent of Millcreek Township schools near Erie, Pa., for three years.
During that time, the school district was inundated by lawsuits — and forced to pay out over $400,000 in sex discrimination settlements — claiming Roberts promoted less qualified women over more deserving men.
Town gossip claimed Roberts hightailed it out of Millcreek after he was caught having sex with a female co-worker on school property — although this could not be verified by The Post.
“There were rumors flying around about his, let’s say, extracurricular activities,” a former colleague in that district said.
Via the New York Times:
The Times attempted to provide cover for Roberts' fabricated life story. It was nearly impossible.
As this story has unfolded over the past few days, the public has learned that Roberts was arrested for attempting to board a plane with a loaded gun in his possession.
Des Moines School Board officials were aware of a citation against Dr. Roberts from Pennsylvania for having a loaded firearm in a vehicle, but said they were unaware of other encounters with law enforcement that ICE has described, including an arrest in 2020 for weapon possession.
That 2020 episode seems to refer to a now-sealed case in New York. Dr. Roberts was at LaGuardia Airport when a gun was discovered during a routine check of his bag, leading to his arrest by Port Authority police officers, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue. It was unclear how that case was resolved.
As more information has emerged, some past supporters of Dr. Roberts have turned intensely critical of him. In the Millcreek Township district, where a performance review once praised Dr. Roberts’s “professionalism, integrity and leadership,” school board members released a letter saying they were “incensed” and that they had been “profoundly misled.”
In Des Moines on the day of Dr. Roberts’s arrest, Ms. Norris called for “radical empathy,” a nod to the title of one of the superintendent’s books. A week later, she said that Dr. Roberts was “an individual who has been deceiving the public for decades.”
How could Roberts have misled so many school districts?
ABC News says, "Ian Roberts should have never been presented as a finalist, and if we knew what we know now, he would never have been hired,” Des Moines Public Schools board chair Jackie Norris said after the board emerged from a closed session Friday morning.
Norris claimed it has become clear that the consulting firm failed to turn up information "of a negative nature" about Roberts that it should have flagged to the school board.
"It's clear that people are identifying and finding information in a matter of hours," Norris said, in reference to public reporting on Roberts since his arrest by ICE last week. "And so it's probably something that they should have caught, and that was our expectation."
What should also catch everyone's attention is that the school board clearly hired Roberts based on DEI. While the PR firm should be held responsible for its failure to do its job, the school board clearly was drawn to this candidate as the epitome of DEI.
In response to the litigation, an attorney for the consulting firm, JG Consulting, said the Texas-based executive search firm is "proud of its extensive record of successfully supporting school districts across the nation."
Takeaway
The phrase "Supporting school districts across the nation" caught my attention.
Pete Hegseth, the current Secretary of Defense and a long-time conservative media commentator, is a strong and vocal critic of the American public education system, which he often refers to as "government schools." He argues that public schools are failing students and are dominated by a "leftist agenda." His views have gained national attention, particularly since his confirmation to lead the Department of Defense.
In 2023, Pete Hegseth, with David Goodwin, wrote a book titled "Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation."
The New York Times bestseller was written with some radical advice: Get out of state education and create something far better and more pleasing to God. Too much is at stake to do otherwise.
This is an overview of the book.
Government-run schools are miserably failing on all fronts. This matter in Des Moines is the latest edition of a failing institution.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Bold. Be Prayerful.
