If you thought America’s education system couldn’t get any more dysfunctional, meet Ian Andre Roberts – the now-former superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools. Turns out, he wasn’t just teaching kids math and science, he was schooling the system on how far an illegal alien can climb up the ladder without anyone noticing.
Roberts, who overstayed a student visa way back in 1999, somehow managed to run Iowa’s largest school district while being both unauthorized to work in the United States and actively registered as a Democrat voter in Maryland.
ICE finally caught up with Roberts after a failed getaway attempt where he was found hiding in the brush like a fugitive on an episode of Cops: School Board Edition. His vehicle wasn’t exactly PTA-friendly either. According to Fox News [1], it contained $3,000 in cash, a fixed-blade hunting knife, and a loaded Glock 19. Bonus trivia: he’s also got past weapons charges, because why not round out the résumé?
Despite his expired work papers, Roberts was pulling a taxpayer-funded paycheck until Iowa yanked his superintendent license. Meanwhile, Republicans in Maryland are demanding to know why someone with a deportation order was still listed as an “active voter.” Looks like nobody did much checking – whether it was the school district, immigration, law enforcement, or voter rolls.
At the end of the day, Roberts wasn’t just a superintendent – he was a walking indictment of government asleep at the wheel – and enough holes in the system (many systems) to let it happen.
If this is what “background checks” look like in modern America, no wonder parents are losing faith in both their schools and their government. Maybe next time, instead of worrying about pronouns in classrooms, someone in charge could worry about whether the superintendent even belongs in the country.