When he was born in December of 1970–or when he was somehow born again in December of 1973 according to his athletic registration records–Ian Roberts could not have imagined that someday he would receive high praise and a great salary as superintendent of a school district in Iowa. Born in Guyana–or somehow also born to immigrant parents in Brooklyn, New York according to a biography posted by the Des Moines Public School District–Roberts could be considered the quintessential American success story.
While working full-time as a principal in Washington, DC, Roberts earned a masters degree from Georgetown University–which the school has not confirmed–while also attaining a doctorate degree in urban educational studies after five years of study at Morgan State University–except Morgan State says they never bestowed a doctorate degree on Roberts. Deciding that wasn’t enough education, Roberts returned to school to achieve another doctorate from Trident American University–which is actually Trident University International, an on-line-only education program, which will neither confirm nor deny that they bestowed that degree upon Roberts. As if that wasn’t enough educational acumen, Dr Roberts also spent three years enrolled in the prestigious MIT Sloan School of Management MBA program–where MIT officials say they have no record of him ever enrolling.
With that much learning and background, it’s no wonder that George Washington University named Dr Roberts the “Washington, DC Principal of the Year”–which Des Moines School Board members touted when introducing him to the public and the press upon his hiring in 2023–but it’s an award that GW officials say they have never handed out. As a leader within the community, Dr Roberts did his civic duty and registered to vote, and cast ballots in the state of Maryland where he lived–which state officials now admit would be a violation of state elections law, as he was not a legal resident of the country. Dr Roberts was so proud of his Maryland residency that when stopped by police officers for speeding in Iowa two separate times after taking the Des Moines job, he presented them with not one, but two Maryland drivers licenses–with two different addresses–beyond the 30-day state requirement to get an Iowa drivers license.
Roberts represented his home country–or his parents’ home country–as an Olympic runner, a skill he put to use as he ran into a wooded area trying to evade Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers after initially trying to flee in his district-owned car, which contained a loaded handgun and three-thousand dollars cash.
All of the drama of the past two weeks has people both in Des Moines and across the country asking, “How did this happen? How does someone in the country illegally, with a work permit that expired years ago, and a deportation order out for him get into a position to lead the largest school district in the state of Iowa?” He is being portrayed as the ultimate con man who took advantage of the trust of “unwitting” people to climb the administrative ladder. But I think it is very fair to say that he had a lot of help–from those who claim now to have been “bamboozled”.
Let’s just start at the end. What do you think would have happened if a member of the Des Moines School Board, when presented with the resume and recommendation to hire Dr Ian Roberts in 2023 had asked “Are we sure this guy is legit? Are we sure he’s here legally and that he really got all of the degrees and all of the honors?” That member would have been immediately excoriated, labeled a racist and a xenophobe, likely censured, forced to issue a public apology, and put under pressure to resign. On-line articles would be titled “School Board member questions legitimacy of lone Black, immigrant candidate for superintendent.”
Given the makeup of most urban school boards these days, no one would have thought to ask such questions, as Ian Roberts is a progressive’s dream candidate for superintendent. What better way to stick it to the conservative voters of outstate Iowa than to appoint not just a Black man to a position traditionally held by a white person, but also an immigrant with an accent. It would send a “powerful message” that Des Moines is committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion in its schools and he would no doubt “serve as an inspiration to all those marginalized students who could ‘see themselves’ in a person that holds a position of authority”.
It turns out that Roberts was caught in one fabrication during the background check process. The firm hired by the Des Moines district did flag his claim to have a doctorate from Morgan State–but he was allowed to submit a “corrected” resume–which was passed on to the school board with a note that Roberts had initially claimed a doctorate. That apparently did not concern school board members and they still went ahead and hired him. Shortly after that decision, Roberts was involved in a wrongful termination lawsuit at his previous superintendent’s job in Millcreek, Pennsylvania. That suit was settled out of court with a nondisclosure condition that neither Roberts nor the woman who claimed mistreatment by him were to say anything disparaging about the other. That too did not concern Des Moines School Board members, who allowed Roberts to take the job without public follow up discussion.
It should be noted here that the Des Moines School Board seems to uh….struggle…with hiring superintendents. The woman that held the position two terms before Roberts resigned after it was revealed that she was using school district computers and her district email account to send sexual messages to her lover during school hours. The guy they hired to replace her quit after a judge found he violated a state order to provide at least 50% of learning in-person in 2021 by keeping all classes in Des Moines virtual (with the endorsement of the school board).
A constant through the hiring issues has been now-Board Chairperson Jackie Norris, who just happens to be the former Chief of Staff for First Lady Michelle Obama–and a Democratic candidate for the US Senate in Iowa. No doubt, Norris could picture in her mind as Roberts took over the job the photo opportunities for the future campaign ads and mailers featuring her and Roberts “working together” to improve Des Moines schools. She likely assumed his endorsement in the race would also solidify minority support across the state. Now, Roberts’ hiring will hang on her like a hairshirt, leading voters to question her leadership abilities and commitment to what is best for kids–not her political career.
That, of course, would be if anyone associated with the hiring of Ian Roberts takes responsibility for that decision. Just today, Norris announced that the district is going to sue the company hired to conduct the background check on Roberts before the school board selected him for superintendent. Now–that everything has been confirmed–the school board insists they would have never hired him if someone (other than them) had asked the right questions. The Millcreek School District is cutting out the middle man altogether and they are suing Roberts himself–basically demanding that he pay back all of the salary and benefits they paid to him (and maybe the quarter-million paid to the victim in the wrongful termination suit too).
And there is one more group complicit in this whole affair: the local media. Back in the day, this is a story that would have been broken by an intrepid reporter, either practicing great journalism by conducting an independent investigation into Roberts’ claims of education, honors, and work history–or by following up on a tip from the public. But “education reporters” today are nothing more than advocates for public schools–thanks in large part to newspapers accepting money from groups calling for increased public education funding to maintain those positions in their newsrooms.
Plus, young reporters today hold many of the same social stances and views as the people they are charged with covering, and questioning those views feels like a personal attack on their beliefs. So they end up going “in depth” only after ICE shows up and provides them with plenty of the information that was publicly available before the raid. Yet I doubt that in Des Moines newsrooms this week anyone is saying “wow, how did we miss this?” If I was down there, I’d be putting in a public information request for all school board member emails pertaining to Roberts’ hiring to see if they actually did recognize the red flags but chose to ignore them for “other reasons”. But again, I doubt that will happen either.
I doubt that when Ian Roberts got into public education that he did so with the intent to defraud school districts across the United States. He didn’t have this grand plan take on fake identities, falsified credentials, and phony sales pitches to land ever-better jobs. He was simply an opportunist who took advantage of two failed systems.
The first was an immigration system that for decades has not been focused on actual enforcement of immigration laws. That lax enforcement led to a general ignorance of the process by those in the county illegally–like Roberts. His order for deportation came not when ICE or Homeland Security learned he was in the country. It came after he missed repeated immigration court dates and made no effort to obtain legal status. Would going through that process have jeopardized his past employment–as he was presenting himself as a legal alien? Maybe. But gaining legal status would have still opened the door to the rather successful career that he enjoyed, without having to look over his shoulder constantly.
And Roberts also took advantage of a public education system more determined to effect social change than to actually educate students. In the school board’s statement on his hiring in Des Moines, then-Chair Teree Caldwell-Johnson said a deciding factor was “Dr. Roberts’ focus on creating equitable experiences for students to thrive.” That announcement came after a closed consideration process. No other finalists for the position were announced. Candidates did not hold meet-and-greets with district parents. The school board went behind closed doors every time, and came out with a finalist selected with no public information on the criteria that was used to select him. This would be why it is imperative now to get those board member emails so that voters and parents know how this really happened.
In the meantime, I hope that after Ian Roberts is returned to Guyana he is greeted by school officials in his home country offering him jobs. He claims to be passionate about education and improving kids lives. Now he gets a chance to do that in a legal way. That is, if he isn’t encouraged by some California district in a “sanctuary city” to sneak back into the country and run their schools as an act of “restorative justice”.
