In 2006, the superintendent of Long Island’s Roslyn school district, Frank Tassone, was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison after helping to drain $11.2 million from the schools, which were in the fourth best school district in the country at the time. How and why Tassone thought he could get away with embezzlement, and what happened when the scandal came to the light, is the subject of HBO’s latest docudrama, Bad Education. Hugh Jackson stars as the beloved school chief, while Alison Janney plays Pam Gluckin, his assistant on the job and in the grift.
Per the network’s description of the film, which is directed by Cory Finley, “a student reporter starts to trace embezzlement at the Roslyn School District in Long Island after the assistant superintendent makes a crucial mistake that hints at corruption that spans over a decade.†And they would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for these meddling, anti-embezzlement kids! Bad Education premieres on April 25.