Tag: public schools

Why it was easy for an illegal immigrant to land top job in Des Moines’ public schools

The arrest of an illegal immigrant serving as the Des Moines, Iowa, superintendent of schools has exposed a broader problem in America’s public education system: Few of them are using E-Verify, the federal government’s tool to weed out people not authorized to work.

Iowa has revoked the education license of Ian Andre Roberts, the Guyanese immigrant who was helming the state’s largest school system despite his defiance of a deportation order issued more than a year ago.

Late Monday, the school board voted to put him on unpaid leave, and said unless he proves his work status by Tuesday, he’ll be fired.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Mr. Roberts on Friday, moving to enforce a final deportation order an immigration judge issued last year. Authorities said Mr. Roberts fled in his Des Moines-issued vehicle, then abandoned it and ran before being tracked down.

When officers later searched his vehicle, they found a handgun, which illegal immigrants cannot possess under the law.

ICE said the case should be a “wake-up call” to communities to better check their hires.

“How this illegal alien was hired without work authorization, a final order of removal, and a prior weapons charge is beyond comprehension and should alarm the parents of that school district,” said Sam Olson, director of the ICE deportation field office that covers Des Moines.

Jackie Norris, chair of the school board, said Mr. Roberts claimed to be a citizen.

She said he presented a driver’s license and Social Security card and filled out Homeland Security’s I-9 form, the paper-based process for verifying someone is eligible to work. She said the school system had no reason to doubt his claims until last week.

But experts said if the school system had used E-Verify, it could have blocked him and avoided the embarrassing black eye.

“Every school district in the United States should be using E-Verify, if simply to protect the children they are responsible for,” said Rosemary Jenks, policy director at the Immigration Accountability Project.

E-Verify is voluntary at the federal level, though some states make it mandatory for employers within their borders. A bill to add Iowa to that list cleared the state Senate last year but did not make it through final passage.

Of the more than 10,000 school districts in the U.S., only a few hundred are listed as users of E-Verify in the program’s database, run by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

A few of those districts are in Iowa, including Storm Lake and the Ballard Community school districts. Des Moines is not among them.

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Des Moines Public Schools Placed Superintendent, an Illegal Alien Fugitive From Guyana, on PAID LEAVE — Board Chair Begs Public to “Cool Down the Rhetoric”: “Enough with the Name Calling… We are Talking About Human Being”

The scandal rocking Des Moines, Iowa, Public Schools has taken an even darker turn after revelations that Superintendent Dr. Ian Andre Roberts, an illegal alien fugitive from Guyana with a deportation order, was placed on paid leave following his dramatic arrest by ICE agents.

ICE agents on Friday arrested Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Ian Andre Roberts, an illegal alien fugitive from Guyana who had been living under a deportation order since May 2024.

According to Fox News reporter Bill Melugin, Roberts fled from ICE agents in his car once they identified themselves, speeding away before abandoning the vehicle and attempting to escape on foot. He was ultimately found hiding in shrubbery with the assistance of an Iowa State Police K9.

Inside his vehicle, agents recovered a loaded Glock 19 handgun, a fixed-blade hunting knife, and $3,000 in cash. Roberts reportedly has a prior weapons arrest dating back to 2020.

Despite this, Roberts was hired as Superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools in July 2023, after a national search process involving an outside firm.

He was granted a superintendent license by the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners in the same year, with an FBI criminal background check that somehow failed to flag his immigration issues.

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Democrats Rage, Leftist NGO Mobilizes After ICE Arrest Of Iowa’s Top School Superintendent

Democrats expressed “national outrage” after the ICE arrest of Ian Roberts, an illegal alien from Guyana who somehow became the Superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools, the largest school district in Iowa. Roberts competed as an Olympic athlete and distance runner for Guyana 25 years ago, but this apparently didn’t help him escape immigration enforcement and his active warrants.

At the time of his arrest, Roberts was working as the Superintendent despite being an illegal alien with a final order of removal and no work authorization. He was caught with a firearm in his possession (which is illegal to carry for a non-citizen), as well as a hunting knife and $3000 cash. Roberts had previous warrants for weapons possession charges in February of 2020.  

Democrats claim that these ICE arrests and Trump’s deportation policies are directly to blame for the now numerous shootings committed by leftist activists. In other words, conservatives who are enforcing constitutional immigration laws are to blame when leftists try to kill them.

During a targeted enforcement operation on Sept. 26, 2025, officers approached Roberts in his vehicle after identifying himself, but he sped away. Officers later discovered his vehicle abandoned near a wooded area. State Patrol assisted in locating the subject and he was taken into ICE custody.

“This suspect was arrested in possession of a loaded weapon in a vehicle provided by Des Moines Public Schools after fleeing federal law enforcement,” said ICE ERO St. Paul Field Office Director Sam Olson. “This should be a wake-up call for our communities to the great work that our officers are doing every day to remove public safety threats. How this illegal alien was hired without work authorization, a final order of removal, and a prior weapons charge is beyond comprehension and should alarm the parents of that school district.”

The arrest spurred a protest outside the federal courthouse in Des Moines.

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The Details Surrounding ICE’s Arrest of Iowa School Superintendent Are Shocking

Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested the Superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools, Ian Andre Roberts, a criminal illegal alien from Guyana, on Thursday. 

Roberts, head of the largest public school district in the state, was in possession of a loaded handgun, $3,000 in cash, and a fixed blade hunting knife at the time of his arrest, according to a statement from ICE. 

He entered the U.S. in 1999 on a student visa and in May of 2024, was given a final order of removal by an immigration judge. He also had existing weapon possession charges from 2020. 

Authorities approached Roberts during a targeted enforcement operation, but he fled in his vehicle, which was later found near a wooded area, ICE said. Iowa State Patrol assisted in locating Roberts. 

“This suspect was arrested in possession of a loaded weapon in a vehicle provided by Des Moines Public Schools after fleeing federal law enforcement,” said ICE ERO St. Paul Field Office Director Sam Olson in a statement. “This should be a wake-up call for our communities to the great work that our officers are doing every day to remove public safety threats. How this illegal alien was hired without work authorization, a final order of removal, and a prior weapons charge is beyond comprehension and should alarm the parents of that school district.”

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Michelle Obama’s Ex-Chief of Staff Hired Illegal CRIMINAL to Run A School District

In 2023, the Des Moines School Board appointed Ian Andre Roberts as Superintendent of Schools, handing him one of the most lucrative contracts in Iowa public education. 

His base salary started at $270,000. That alone should raise eyebrows in a state where teachers regularly earn less than $50,000 a year. 

But what makes this case even more alarming is the fact that Roberts was an illegal immigrant with a criminal record when he was hired.

Roberts entered the United States legally but overstayed his visa. 

By May 2024, he had received a final deportation order, yet he remained in charge of the entire Des Moines Public School District. 

Worse still, when the board voted to hire him, they were already aware that Roberts had faced a weapons charge in 2020. 

Despite these red flags, the school board proceeded with the appointment, prioritizing political connections and appearances over community safety and integrity.

The arrangement was not only reckless—it was expensive. According to the Des Moines Register, Roberts’ contract went far beyond a six-figure base salary. 

Taxpayers were also on the hook for a payment to a “tax-sheltered annuity” equal to 14% of his annual pay. That comes out to nearly $38,000 per year. 

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School District Superintendent Raked in MILLIONS Before ICE Arrest

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts after allegedly fleeing when agents arrived to enforce a deportation order. 

Roberts, originally from Guyana, has been under a final deportation order since May 2024. Despite that order, he continued to lead Iowa’s largest school district until his arrest this week.

What makes this case even more alarming is not only that Roberts remained in office unlawfully, but that he was paid handsomely for doing so. 

His current base salary exceeded $180,000 per year, and district officials were preparing to raise his base pay to $270,000. Over the course of his tenure, that means Roberts could have earned millions of dollars in taxpayer money while residing in the country illegally.

The district released a short statement claiming they had “no information” about the circumstances of his arrest. That explanation does not change the facts. 

Federal records make clear that Roberts was under orders of removal. Yet the school board allowed him to remain in charge, responsible for nearly 30,000 students and one of the state’s largest budgets.

This is not the first controversy involving Roberts. He was previously detained in connection with carrying a firearm, though authorities never provided full details. That earlier incident was first noted in reports months ago, but new information about his contract and salary has raised the level of concern. 

Parents and taxpayers now have to ask: how was an individual under deportation orders allowed not only to keep his job but to receive a six-figure salary funded by public money?

The political response has been predictable. Protests are already being organized to defend Roberts, portraying him as the victim rather than the perpetrator. That narrative ignores a basic truth. 

A superintendent facing deportation should not be rewarded with a salary approaching $200,000, nor should a school board prepare to give him an even larger raise.

Families deserve better than a system that treats lawbreaking as a minor administrative detail.

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Southern States of Mississippi and Louisiana Go Back to Teaching the Basics in School – Now Lead Liberal States Like California in Literacy

Anyone who follows education news, or just has children in public schools, knows that we have an education crisis in this country right now.

Grade school students in multiple states cannot read or do math at grade level. The problem already existed years ago, but shutting down schools during Covid-19 made things even worse.

Now, some states in the south have discovered a cure for the problem – Going back to basics and teaching things like phonics.

It’s amazing. If you focus on teaching kids to read rather than telling them about social justice and gender theory, they actually learn to read. Who knew?

Kelsey Piper writes at ‘The Argument’ on Substack:

Illiteracy is a policy choice

This month, the Department of Education released its latest edition of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the standardized tests better known as the Nation’s Report Card. The results have left me blazing with rage.

In my home state of California, for instance, only 30% of public school fourth graders can read proficiently. Fully 41% cannot even read at a basic level — which is to say, they cannot really understand and interpret written text at all. Eighth graders, as you might expect, look almost as bad…

But scores are not slipping everywhere. In Mississippi, they have been rising year over year. The state recovered from a brief decline during COVID and has now surpassed its pre-COVID highs. Its fourth grade students outperform California’s on average, even though our state is richer, more educated, and spends about 50% more per pupil.

The difference is most pronounced if you look at the most disadvantaged students. In California, only 28% of Black fourth graders read at or above basic level, for instance, compared to 52% in Mississippi. But it’s not just that Mississippi has raised the floor. It has also raised the ceiling: The state is also one of the nation’s best performers when you look at students who are not “economically disadvantaged.”…

First, it’s not just Mississippi — Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee have adopted the same strategies, stemmed the bleeding affecting states elsewhere, and seen significant improvements…

This is the part of the story that has gotten the most attention — teach phonics! And you should, indeed, teach phonics. But making schools adopt the approach took more than a mere nudge. The Southern Surge states have tried earmarked funding, guidance to districts, and outright mandates to accomplish universal adoption.

When schools embrace nonsense like gender and social justice, they do so at the expense of basic and necessary skills like reading and basic math, robbing students of learning the things they will need to succeed in life.

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L.A. School District to Ban Fifth-Grade Plays About U.S. History: ‘Culturally Insensitive’

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is banning a celebrated series of fifth-grade musical plays about American history at a local charter school because, the district says, they are “culturally insensitive.”

For nearly three decades, the fifth-graders at Marquez Charter Elementary in Pacific Palisades have performed musicals about crucial periods in the formation of the United States.

These include Miracle in Philadelphia, about the Constitutional Convention; Hello, Louisiana!, about the voyage of Lewis and Clark; and Water and Power, about the Industrial Revolution. (A fourth-grade play, Gold Dust or Bust, focuses on the history of California.)

The musicals, co-written by Jeff Lantos (with music composed by the late jazz pianist Bill Augustine), are so successful in conveying historical details that Marquez students consistently score off the charts in history assessments.

A 2004 academic study of the Marquez plays observed: “Students who attended Marquez Elementary School scored more than twice as many items correctly [on history tests] as did students from other schools.”

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Sorry: Firing teachers who cheer Charlie Kirk’s murder isn’t embracing ‘cancel culture’

Listen to the mainstream media, and you’ll hear that conservatives, once stalwart opponents to censorship, are now themselves the censors.

“Is the right embracing cancel culture after the Charlie Kirk assassination?” Newsweek asks.

Poppycock.

No one has ever argued that expression should never face consequence of any kind.

Were I tomorrow to openly insult my boss and pen a column praising the finer points of “Mein Kampf,” my employer would be well within its right to show me the door.

If a pastor of a Christian church espoused atheism, the elder board would be wise to keep him from preaching.

In this case, if a teacher celebrates the murder of a father, it’s only normal that parents might email their principal requesting action.

The issue with left-wing crusades for cancellation over the previous decade isn’t that individuals faced social consequences for their speech but that the speech itself comprised innocuous opinions or inconvenient facts.

Examples abound of individuals facing professional sanction for the most trivial of expression.

Analyst David Shor lost his job for noting data that found riots actually helped the right.

A professor had to pack up his office for teaching the proper pronunciation of a Chinese word that sounded like an English slur.

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Jillian Michaels: “Kids At My Daughter’s High School Were Celebrating” Assassination Of Charlie Kirk

In the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Jillian Michaels told NewsNation about a very disturbing text message received from her daughter.

“Kids at my daughter’s high school were celebrating” the assassination, said Michaels. It’s unclear in what area this took place.

Michaels, a lesbian, had worked a bit with Charlie Kirk. She said the celebrations were “disgusting”. “Something is WRONG in this country,” she added.

Michaels is a fitness trainer, podcaster, and media personality.

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