bad education

What ‘Bad Education’ Got Right — and Wrong — About the Real-Life Scandal

By Ej Dickson

The only thing better than a fictionalized version of a real-life scandal is one that prominently features Long Island accents, and HBO ‘s Bad Education  ticks all those boxes and more. Based on a mid-2000s scandal in Roslyn, a well-off suburb of New York City, the movie tells the story of Superintendent Frank Tassone (a brilliantly creepy Hugh Jackman), a superficially charming and ambitious school superintendent who is arrested for embezzling millions from the school district. The case involved multiple arrests and millions of dollars, and would later become known as the largest school embezzlement scandal in U.S. history.

The film depicts how for years, Tassone and his second-in-command Pamela Gluckin (Allison Janney) brazenly used school funds to pay for their lavish lifestyles, which for Tassone included face lifts and first-class flights to London with his much younger boyfriend. Yet because the school has a high Ivy League admit rate, Tassone avoids the notice of authorities, until a dogged high school reporter (Geraldine Viswanathan) blows the lid off the scandal. Eventually, Tassone was sentenced to four to 10 years in prison, and was released on good behavior in 2010. Gluckin was sentenced to three to nine years in prison for stealing $4.9 million; she was released in 2011, and died in 2017.

Bad Education  is based on a  New York  magazine story by reporter Robert Kolker , and for the most part the film is relatively faithful to its source material. Yet there are a few key deviations, with the real-life Tassone taking umbrage with some details of Jackman’s portrayal of him. Here are just a few things the movie got right — and wrong — about the scandal.

1) Tassone did indeed throw Pamela Gluckin under the bus while concealing the extent of his own embezzlement. 

According to Bad Education,  Pamela Gluckin’s embezzlement is discovered when her son rings up a hefty tab from a hardware store, charging it to the school’s credit card; she is later confronted by members of the school board and Tassone, a longtime friend of hers, who refers to her as a “sociopath” before calling for her resignation. He then convinces the school board not to report the theft to the authorities, for fear of hurting Roslyn High School’s reputation and college acceptance numbers.

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Per Kolker’s article, this confrontation — and Tassone’s betrayal of Gluckin — is fairly close to what actually happened. Unlike in the film, however, it took a full two years after Gluckin was fired for Tassone to be investigated for his own misdeeds. Even after her firing came to light, Tassone continued to deflect blame, allowing angry parents to target their ire at the school board for covering it up, rather than at him. “[He] was seen by Roslynites as valiantly coming to the board’s defense, telling everyone who would listen how upset he was, how betrayed they all felt by Gluckin,” Kolker writes for New York  magazine.

2) Both Tassone and Gluckin were extremely brazen about their purchases.

The movie depicts both Tassone and Gluckin flagrantly flaunting their lavish lifestyles. Gluckin is depicted as particularly egregious, hosting guests in the Hamptons at one of her three homes, and blithely tossing around the school credit card to pay for her niece’s PlayStation. Indeed, it does appear that both Gluckin and Tassone were pretty blatant about their purchasing habits, with Gluckin driving around in a Jaguar with the vanity plate DUNENUTN (a detail that’s thankfully captured in the film) and Tassone using $56,645 of schools funds to pay for a Manhattan weight-loss doctor. His predilection for cosmetic surgery was also well noted by parents.

From Kolker’s New York  magazine article: “Says one parent: ‘Suddenly it’s not Frank in a Ford Taurus with his pants way up to here — it’s Frank with his hair slicked back and a face-lift.’ Parents and teachers couldn’t fail to notice long light scars behind his ears. A few years into his tenure, he showed up to a parents’ meeting with small bruises around both eyes. He said he had been boxing, but people in Roslyn know an eye tuck when they see one.”

3) The character of Rachel Bhagavra is a composite of the Hilltop Beacon ‘s staff. 

One of the most shocking aspects of the scandal, as depicted by Bad Education,  is that it was uncovered not by the mainstream press, but by a high school newspaper — specifically, one dogged student journalist (Viswanathan) at the  Hilltop Beacon,  who breaks the story despite being discouraged by the paper’s senior staff and by Tassone himself.

Watch Hugh Jackman Face Up to Corruption in 'Bad Education' Trailer

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It’s absolutely true that the student newspaper the  Hilltop Beacon  broke the story, which was later picked up nationwide. But Bjahavra herself is not based on a real person, screenwriter Mike Magovsky told Slate , referring to her as “a part composite, part invention meant to be an audience surrogate who is finding out information with us.” She appears to be in part based on Rebekah Rombom, then-editor-in-chief of the  Beacon , who wrote an article for the  New York Times  discussing how the paper broke the story.

According to her account, her reporting didn’t arise from being assigned to another “puff piece,” as is depicted in the film; rather, she and her co-editor received a tip that an anonymous letter was floating around accusing a school district employee (later identified as Gluckin) of stealing money. The letter prompted the board of education to call for an emergency meeting, which was attended and reported on by Rombom. “I believe it was inevitable that this story would have surfaced eventually. All we did was push it there a little faster,” she wrote.

4) Tassone was not closeted, nor did he date a former student.

In the movie, Tassone is seen flirting with a Las Vegas bartender named Kyle (Rafael Casal), whom he recognizes as a former student of his. Tassone then has an affair with Kyle, jetting back and forth from New York to Vegas and flying him first-class to London, unbeknownst to his longtime partner Tom (as portrayed by Stephen Spinella, whose name was changed in the film from Steven).

Kyle is actually a fictionalized version of Tassone’s former boyfriend Jason Daughterty, a 32-year-old former exotic dancer with whom Tassone actually purchased a house. He was not Tassone’s former student, and in an interview with the Coach Mike podcast, Tassone seemed to take particular umbrage with that aspect of the film’s portrayal. He also took issue with the fact that the film portrayed him as closeted, going to great lengths to conceal his sexual orientation by keeping a photo of his deceased wife on his desk. (He also denies that his partner didn’t know about his boyfriend and that he had an open marriage.)

“I’m not ashamed of being a gay man, and again, they made it seem somewhat sordid,” Tassone said. “That bothered me and upset me when the detective questioned [husband] Steven, and he implied that Steven didn’t even know I was married. That was not the case. And I don’t understand why they had to bring my sexuality into the film.”

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Bad Education

  TV-MA | biographical dramas | 1 HR 49 MIN | 2019

A respected Long Island school superintendent (Hugh Jackman) and his assistant (Allison Janney) turn up in a massive embezzlement scheme.

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‘Bad Education’ Review: Hugh Jackman Is Brilliant in Diabolically Smart American Crime Story

David ehrlich.

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One of the more beautiful things about being an American is that it’s easy to justify your own success — at least to yourself. This is the land of opportunity, and people are taught from an early age that they get what they deserve, and they deserve what they get; if they weren’t, the injustice of it all might spoil the fun. You don’t necessarily have to earn your good fortune, you just have to believe you’re entitled to it. Needless to say, we are up to that challenge! And we’ll do whatever it takes to keep everything in its right place.

With that in mind, it’s strange that, as Americans, we still tell ourselves that corruption is usually a symptom of greed, as opposed (or in addition) to something that happens when people can’t afford to question their own worth. It’s a red, white, and blue twist on a universal kind of perceptual asymmetry: When you do something wrong, you think of an excuse — when someone else does something wrong, you think of a motive. The incredible magic trick of Cory Finley ’s “ Bad Education ,” a diabolically smart true-life crime drama that stars Hugh Jackman in his best performance since “The Prestige,” is how it manages to balance that asymmetry in the most savage and softhearted of ways, inviting sympathy for the devil even after it convinces you why he should go to hell.

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Heavy with poisoned humor and as panoramic as Finley’s “ Thoroughbreds ” was laser-focused, “Bad Education” is in no hurry to reveal the full picture; watching the first hour of the movie, it’s hard to imagine how this seemingly benign story of suburban malfeasance could possibly explode into the biggest embezzlement scandal in the history of the American school system. But the pieces are there from the moment the film starts, buried just under the sand. Screenwriter Mike Makowsky — whose script is a well-calculated masterclass in narrative economy — takes us back to the Long Island high school where he was a student in 2002.

From the looks of things, that seemed like a great time to go there. Facebook hasn’t been invented yet, college early-admission rates are soaring, and the cash-flush administration is about to pass a budget that allocates $7.5 million for a useless but presumably cool-looking “skybridge.” They’ve earned it. When “Bad Education” begins, Roslyn, New York, is the number-four school district in the entire country, and much of the credit for that belongs to the man, the myth, the legend — Dr. Frank Tassone (Jackman).

It’s rare to see people react to a superintendent like he’s — let’s go with a 2002-appropriate reference — one of the All-American Rejects, but it’s basically pandemonium whenever this guy appears before the PTA. And can you blame them? This is the guy who’s going to get their kids into Yale, even if he has to write all their recommendations himself (Frank never forgets a student). He’ll grant your son extra time on a test if you ask him nicely, he’ll join you for an extracurricular discussion about Dickens at an otherwise all-moms book club, and he won’t even embarrass you when you try to kiss him in the kitchen after everyone else has gone home. Besides, any man that handsome — he’s a dead ringer for P.T. Barnum! — is probably used to being flirted with by now, and there’s a tantalizing layer of sadness beneath that perfect head of slicked-back hair. Frank has been a widower for as long as anyone can remember, but he’s still never seen without his wedding ring.

This may not sound like a particularly engaging world, and “Bad Education” resists the temptation to sex it up for the sake of things, but Finley’s rigid compositions and Lyle Vincent’s gliding camera moves galvanize Frank’s administrative fiefdom with a sense of absolute purpose. The office is a well-oiled machine. Frank and assistant superintendent Pam Gluckin (an excellent Allison Janney , as if there’s any other kind) are a perfect twosome, even if she tantalizes him with the carbs she’s sworn off. Even the millionaire school board president (Ray Romano) is thrilled. God is in his heaven, and all is right with the world.

Except, it isn’t. And it’s not the leak in the high school’s hallway ceiling. Secret lives and brazen incongruities abound. In a film where even the most innocent scenes crackle with nervous energy and even frustrated erotic tension, a chance Las Vegas encounter between Frank and an old student (Rafael Casal) is electric with a where-else-could-this-be-going intensity. Your first inclination will probably be to pity Frank for feeling like he needs to live in the closet. Is this the mask that always seems like it’s about to slip off his face? Did his wife know when she was alive?

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, an intrepid student reporter (“Blockers” and “Hala” actress Geraldine Viswanathan , continuing to strike the right balance in every part she plays), is writing a story about the skybridge. That wouldn’t be a problem if Frank hadn’t encouraged her realize her full potential and not settle for a puff piece; it wouldn’t be a problem if Pam’s idiot son (hopelessly typecast “American Vandal” star Jimmy Tatro) hadn’t bought hardware supplies on the corporate card she’s been using to steal money from the school for years. Janney, who affects a hard Long Island accent that resists parody even during her funniest scenes, affects the part of a wounded lioness; survival is top priority, but it’s not that simple. Pam isn’t a sociopath, just someone with a warped perception of what’s best for everyone. And she’s about to be the victim of a generational reckoning that she never thought necessary.

She isn’t the only one. “Bad Education” always finds its way back to Frank, but Makowsky’s patient script has a knack for catching the superintendent unawares. Here is someone who doesn’t have the good sense to realize that he’s the main character of a movie; someone who thinks that he’s always just outside the eye of the storm. That misperception gives Jackman the space needed to be life-sized in a way that his “bigger” roles seldom have.

This is the most human performance he’s ever given, wrapped in translucent vanity and cut with finely sliced layers of doubt and denial. Whether locked in an oppressive close-up (the vibrating film stock reacting to even the most imperceptible muscle twitch) or trying to wrestle back control of Frank’s domain, Jackman always threads the needle between shock and showmanship. Through him, Frank seems both innocent and guilty at all times, and the actions he’s able to justify (good optics sometimes require bad choices!) steer him right into his blind spots. Early in the film, Frank tells a struggling lower schooler that he was also bad at math, and now look at him: He’s the guy who designs the math curriculum. The tragic thing about Frank — and the most brilliant thing about “Bad Education” — is that he honestly doesn’t understand why that might not add up.

“Bad Education” has some blind spots of its own, not least of which is a reluctance to dig into Frank’s stunted desire for upward mobility. He doesn’t want to be richer, but he still resents the fact that he makes a little bit more than a teacher’s salary while his boss is a multimillionaire; affluent local parents lean on Frank like every test their kids take is a matter of life and death, and they don’t even bother to say thank you once the college acceptance letters go out. “Bad Education” is appreciably embittered about teachers and on the school administrator’s behalf, but the film is doing so many different things — and juggling enough different tones to make Bong Joon-ho blush — that it has to squeeze the distance between its peaks and valleys. Michael Abels’ jangly, effective score sounds like a malfunctioning factory assembly line, and the disorder is such that Finley can’t spare the extra moment he needs to explore the relationship between the underpaid faculty and the wealthy community they serve.

However disappointing it might be that “Bad Education” is too delicate (and true) to really go wild and let Finley indulge in the flamboyance that made “Thoroughbreds” such a wicked treat, this is a young director who can see the whole chess game 20 moves in advance. Whatever compromises he makes are excused and then some by a remarkable third-act scene that defies every rule about conventional filmmaking — a wordless and shockingly moving dance number so human and desperate that it makes you take all your own judgments with a grain of salt. The “Nightshift” sequence from Claire Denis’ “35 Shots of Rum” may never be equalled, but Finley comes awfully close. Dr. Frank Tassone deserves what he gets, but — for at least one perfect moment — we’re all invited to wonder if he truly gets what he deserves.

“Bad Education” premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.

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‘Bad Education’: Film Review

Hugh Jackman delivers an acting master class, trading on his charismatic star persona to reveal the rotten core of bad-apple superintendent Frank Tassone.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

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Going forward, what will Hollywood do when it needs a Kevin Spacey type? The disgraced Oscar winner is precisely the actor a movie like “ Bad Education ” calls for: Cory Finley ’s audacious second feature centers on the true story of Frank Tassone, district superintendent of the Roslyn School District in Long Island, N.Y. — a hero to parents and students alike, responsible for turning Roslyn High into one of the state’s top-achieving public schools, while exploiting the trust the community put in him. It’s a tricky, two-faced role that calls for the kind of firm-handshake, direct-eye-contact duplicity Spacey brought to “House of Cards” and half a dozen movies before it. Go ahead, Google “Frank Tassone” and tell me that I’m wrong.

Now, Hugh Jackman isn’t the actor I would’ve expected to fill those shoes. He’s more movie star than character actor, and this role presents him in such an unflattering light — quite literally so, shooting its cast such that their skin looks like raw chicken and every wrinkle casts a shadow — that you’d think his agent would have advised him against it. (George Clooney’s probably did.) That’s what’s so courageous about Jackman’s decision, and one of several reasons that “Bad Education” is the best work he’s ever done.

Here’s a star at the height of his powers leveraging his own appeal to remind that even our heroes are fallible and that you can never really judge someone from the outside. And Finley — whose only prior feature credit is the ice-cold, Patricia Highsmith-worthy high-wire act “Thoroughbreds” — is every bit the director to bring it home, pairing Jackman with an equally astonishing Allison Janney as school business administrator Pam Gluckin, Tassone’s creative-accounting accomplice. Finley, who clearly thrives when dramatizing morally complicated situations, doesn’t do the first thing you’d expect from any telling of this national-headline-making story (one that was first exposed by the school paper, the Hilltop Beacon): He doesn’t sensationalize it. Not that it would have been wrong to do so.

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It worked for Martin Scorsese in “The Wolf of Wall Street.” It worked for Steven Soderbergh in “The Informant.” Splash it up — that’s the obvious answer. Make the colors pop, the movie’s carotid artery bulge. That’s how such material is usually played. Look at this story on paper — a high school student exposes an $11 million embezzlement scheme perpetrated by the institution’s most admired figure — and you might expect a tongue-in-cheek cross between “Election” and “To Die For” (the Gus Van Sant-directed satire inspired by Pamela Smart, a high school employee locked up after enlisting her teenage lover to murder her hubby).

Written by Mike Makowsky (“I Think We’re Alone Now”), who was attending Roslyn Middle School when the Tassone scandal broke, “Bad Education” doesn’t shy away from the humor of the situation, but it doesn’t go for the cheap laughs either (unless you count some of the distractingly tacky decorating choices in Gluckin’s ready-for-remodeling home). With their strong accents and “Sopranos”-like way of dressing, the movie’s all-too-trusting Long Island residents would’ve been an easy target for parody, but that’s not the tone Finley’s going for. From the high-contrast, stark-widescreen look of things, he’s most interested in the way that people like Tassone and Gluckin could rationalize what they were doing.

That’s easy: Of all the careers in America, educators are by far the most undercompensated. In New York, where the cost of living is high and the real estate outrageous (the latter ironically exacerbated by the quality of the public schools), how are teachers supposed to afford being part of the community they serve? That doesn’t justify graft, mind you, but it suggests how people who’ve dedicated their lives to a low-earning field might find themselves bent toward skimming a little something extra for themselves out of the school budget.

“Bad Education” makes a point of showing how much Tassone meant to the community. Early on (the year is 2002, as signified by flip phones, compact discs and other period details), Tassone is seen tweezing his nose hairs before going onstage to take credit for turning the school into a success. Roslyn is ranked No. 4 in the country. Test scores are up. Seniors are getting into Ivy League schools in record numbers. And Roslyn is set to break ground on a $7.5 million “sky walk” that could give the community a massive boost.

Rachel, a sophomore played by “Blockers” standout Geraldine Viswanathan , has just joined the school paper, whose editor isn’t prepared for the deep dive into the school’s financial records that she has in mind. “We are an extracurricular designed to get us into good colleges,” he says. But Rachel (a fictional character based on an actual student journalist) has something to prove — to herself; to her father (Harid Hillon), who was canned in an insider-trading scandal; and to Tassone, who truly cares about the students, encouraging her to turn the puff-piece assignment into something meaningful.

At times, the story borders on the incredible, and it may spoil the surprise to read some of the details that follow. Through an imbecilic mistake — in which Gluckin’s son charges thousands of dollars of home renovation supplies to the school account — the school board gets wind of Gluckin’s financial misdeeds. When it happens, audiences don’t know whether or to what degree Tassone is involved, and it’s fascinating to watch Jackman in action: Like a master politician (or a brilliant actor), he sizes up the situation, assesses his audience and begins to spin things to best protect all involved. In other movies, scenes like these are played such that viewers can see the con man’s hand, but Jackman keeps a poker face, which protects the remaining surprises until such time that Rachel can reveal them.

True-crime movies so often serve to reinforce the notion that wrongdoers are eventually brought to justice in this country. But “Bad Education” refuses to get so reductively didactic. Yes, Tassone and Gluckin stole millions of dollars, but they also made Roslyn an extremely successful school (if you don’t dwell on the leaky ceilings and outdated equipment). When certain details of Tassone’s private life come to light — including a reunion with a former student (Rafael Casal of “Blindspotting”) and an unconventional arrangement with one of the school’s mysterious suppliers (Stephen Spinella) — one may be tempted to judge. But the real takeaway is how hard that can be.

Maybe Spacey isn’t the only one who can handle the ambiguity such a performance demands. The way Jackman plays it, Tassone was a villain who didn’t see himself as such. Finley finds creative ways to suggest the discrepancy between inner and outer selves. The hair-slicked, health-conscious superintendent is constantly watching his cholesterol, forgoing carbs in favor of charcoal smoothies — which amounts to nourishing his insides with what looks like black bile. Late in the game, before the jig is up, he goes in for a face-lift — another reminder of the mask Tassone wears (and an unexpected sight for a now-50-year-old movie star). Appearances can be deceiving. This we know. But how do young people cope with having their images of their heroes shattered? And is it really any easier for adults? “Bad Education” can be a hard lesson to accept, but a necessary one in how the world works.

Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentations), Sept. 8, 2019. Running time: 108 MIN.

• Production: An HBO release of an Automatik, Sight Unseen, Slater Hall production. (Int'l sales: Endeavor Content, Los Angeles.) Producers: Fred Berger, Eddie Vaisman, Julia Lebedev, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Oren Moverman, Mike Makowsky. Executive producers: Leonid Lebedev, Caroline Jaczko.
• Crew: Director: Cory Finley. Screenplay: Mike Makowsky, based on the New York Magazine article "Bad Superintendent" by Robert Kolker. Camera (color, widescreen): Lyle Vincent. Editor: Louise Ford. Music: Michael Abels.
• With: Hugh Jackman, Allison Janney, Ray Romano, Geraldine Viswanathan

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Pushy parents basking in the reflected glory of driving their kids toward extreme excellence is not exactly a new phenomenon. Long before the college admissions scandal that brought down corporate executives and Hollywood stars alike, the pursuit of academic superiority—real or imagined—has inspired perfectly sensible people to go to insane lengths. The right neighborhood with the right schools, a packed schedule of the right kinds of activities and athletics—it’s all to achieve the greater goal of sending their children to the right Ivy League university which will prepare them for the right lucrative career.

The top administrators at the Roslyn, New York, school district seemed not only to understand this instinct but also to exploit it for their own personal gain. “ Bad Education ” explores their real-life embezzlement scheme, which came crashing down when the high-school newspaper broke the story in 2004. Spending nearly $8 million on a sky bridge to beautify a campus seems reasonable when you’re trying to exude an aura of success—when you’re the fourth-ranked district in the country, gunning for that No. 1 spot. With that much money flying around, skimming a little here and there for a bagel or jewelry or renovations on your beach house in the Hamptons is no biggie.

Director Cory Finley finds the dark humor within this scandal, which he depicts with wit, style and a terrific cast. Hugh Jackman does some of the best work of his long and varied career as the superintendent, Dr. Frank Tassone, whose charisma and polished image disguised a multitude of secrets. Jackman plays on his usual charm and looks to great effect. But there’s something sinister within the slickness that’s unsettling from the first time we see him, spritzing cologne and trimming nose hairs in the mirror of the boys’ bathroom in extreme close-up. Frank clearly cares deeply and works hard to recall names and personal details of students and parents alike throughout the district; we can still see glimmers of the calling that drew him to this challenging profession in the first place. Fundamentally, he’s a pleaser and he wants to be liked—yet increasingly, he savors the fame and power that come with being in a position of authority in an affluent community. And as Frank and his second-in-command (played brilliantly by a brash Allison Janney ) find themselves squirming to survive when their $11.2 million scheme comes to light, their flaws and follies become even more glaringly evident.

Finley’s follow-up to “ Thoroughbreds ,” one of my favorite films of 2018, doesn’t seek to dazzle with sleek, showy camerawork like that film did. But it’s similarly interested in mining the depths of out darkest impulses, and doing so with sharp satire. ( Mike Makowsky , who was a middle school student in Roslyn when the embezzlement scandal broke, wrote the script.) “Bad Education” also calls to mind the great Alexander Payne film “ Election ,” with its students who are smarter and savvier than you’d expect and teachers who aren’t as mature and responsible as you’d hope. Finley actually could have used a bit more of Payne’s sharp bite in tackling this material. Geraldine Viswanathan radiates a quiet but increasingly assertive confidence as the high school reporter whose tough questions and thorough document searches reveal the district’s financial irregularities. Just as compelling as what she finds is her internal debate over how to handle that information. She knows what’s the right thing to do—but what if that’s the wrong move for her future?

That’s the dilemma that also plagues the school board members—led by a vividly haggard Ray Romano —when they first learn of the administrators’ indiscretions. Going public would not only jeopardize the standing of the school district nationwide, it also would damage its reputation locally, which would make it harder for high-school seniors to gain acceptance at top universities, which would cause property values to plummet.

For a long time, Jackman keeps us guessing as to the amount of Frank’s knowledge and the depth of his involvement. Janney’s Pam Gluckin chats casually about flagrant misuse of her district credit card over the buzz of the blender as she mixes margaritas. (And the film’s costume and production design find just the right amount of Long Island tacky and flashy without diving over the top into parody.) Frank, on the other hand, contains myriad, fascinating multitudes. As Jackman gets older, he seems less interested in getting us to like him and more inclined to play complicated characters who make questionable decisions. Wildly violent as his Wolverine may be in the “ X-Men ” universe—particularly in the excellent, standalone “ Logan ”—he’s still essentially a hero. “Bad Education” gives him the chance to play someone who may be doing some truly bad things, and you can tell he’s really sinking his claws into the role this time.

Premieres on HBO on Saturday, 4/25.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Bad Education (2020)

103 minutes

Hugh Jackman as Frank Tassone

Allison Janney as Pam Gluckin

Ray Romano as Bob Spicer

Alex Wolff as Nick Fleischman

Geraldine Viswanathan as Rachel Kellog

• Cory Finley
• Mike Makowsky

Cinematographer

• Lyle Vincent
• Louise Ford
• Michael Abels

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The Real Frank Tassone and the True Story Behind HBO's Bad Education

Everything you need to know about the real events behind the new Hugh Jackman movie, which tells the story of how Frank Tassone stole millions from a Long Island high school.

Director Cory Finley created the dramatized retelling of the spectacular 2002 scandal with the help of screenwriter Mike Makowsky, who was a middle schooler in Roslyn when all of this was happening. Here is everything we know about the real life events behind Bad Education .

Who Is Frank Tassone?

To the students, parents, and teachers of Roslyn, Frank Tassone was a charming and eloquent school administrator with a doctorate degree from Columbia University who regularly ate lunch with students, led a book group with school parents, and kept a photo of his late wife on his desk .

As they would all eventually find out, Tassone was actually leading a double life, stealing millions in taxpayer money ($2.2 million to be exact) to finance the Park Avenue apartment he shared with his partner Stephen Signorelli (or Thomas Tuggiero in the film), the trips to Las Vegas to visit his lover Jason Daugherty (aka Kyle Contreras in the movie), plus the expensive suits, cars, and cosmetic surgeries, along with the more idiosyncratic expenses , such as $37,385 in dry cleaning bills, $5,236 for Christmas cards, and $56,000 to a diet doctor.

He Turned Roslyn High Into One of America's Best Schools

Tassone was, however, an effective superintendent. During his 12-year tenure, Roslyn High School, which is located in Long Island's tony North Shore just over 20 miles outside of Manhattan (former Roslyn residents include the late fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer and Billions co-creator Brian Koppelman) entered the top ten in national rankings of the best public schools.

A month before Tassone's crimes were exposed in May 2004, the Wall Street Journal ranked Roslyn the sixth-best public high school in America. According to the New York magazine story that inspired the HBO flick, "A diploma from Roslyn High School is the closest you can get on Long Island to a ticket to Harvard."

Who Was Pamela Gluckin?

Gluckin was the assistant superintendent and business administrator of the Roslyn School District. When the school board found out she was using the district credit card for personal expenses to the tune of $250,000, Tassone—in order to conceal his own crimes—promptly threw Gluckin under the bus, forcing her to resign and lose her license.

Of course it would later be revealed that Gluckin stole much more than $250,000. The actual sum was $4.3 million, which she used for Florida and Hamptons vacation homes, jewelry, art, and other purchases. Her niece Debra Rigano (in the film her character's name is Jenny Aquila), who worked as a district clerk, was also in on the scheme and was accused of stealing more than $780,000 .

Gluckin's son John McCormick (his name is Jimmy McCarden in the movie), whose immense Home Depot shopping spree with the district credit card is what got his mother in trouble in the first place, ended up serving five years of probation and 100 hours of community service for the $83,000 he stole.

In an act of self-preservation, Tassone convinced the school board not to go to the authorities regarding Gluckin's six-figure theft, arguing it would affect Roslyn's reputation and school ranking.

Tassone's Eventual Downfall Was Precipitated by a School Reporter

In the movie, a student reporter named Rachel Bhargava (played by Geraldine Viswanathan) is working on a story about a new school construction project for Roslyn High's school newspaper, The Hilltop Beacon , and begins to dig deeper into the school's financial records to eventually uncover Tassone's multimillion-dollar embezzlement.

In real life, Tassone's unraveling did come at the hands of a student reporter, Rebekahn Rombom, but via different means. Rombom got a tip about the real reason behind Gluckin's firing and her story led to authorities and major news outlets catching on to their years-long con.

Is Bob Spicer Based on a Real Person?

The short answer is no. Ray Romano plays Bob Spicer, a real estate agent and head of the school board, who, like the rest of Roslyn's overachieving, education-obsessed parents, is thrilled with—and consequently blinded by—Tassano's successes in raising the school's test scores and Ivy League admissions, which in turn made real estate prices soar and cemented Roslyn's status as the most sought-after zip code on Long Island. "In real estate, especially on Long Island, a town is only as good as its public school system," he says. While Spicer is not based on a real-life individual, he's meant to represent the Roslyn community.

Where Is Frank Tassone Now?

In 2006, Tassone was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison for larceny but got out early, in 2010, for good behavior and was put on probation until 2018. The now-septuagenarian is forbidden from holding any job that requires handling money. He currently lives a low-profile life in New York but still receives a generous pension of $170,000 a year (the result of an oversight in state pension law).

This month, he was a guest on personal life coach Mike Bayer's podcast, where he spoke about finding out last fall that a movie was to be made about his crime. "I just crumbled," he said. "I thought this finally was over. You know, it'll never be over for me, because every day I feel pain."

Where Is Pamela Gluckin Now?

Gluckin, who was sentenced to three to nine years, was released in 2011 and remained on parole until 2015. It was reported that she vowed to contribute half her pension ($55,000 annually) every year to repay the Roslyn school district and found a job working at a nonprofit in Queens. She died in 2017.

Leena Kim is an editor at Town & Country , where she covers travel, jewelry, education, weddings, and culture.

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‘Bad Education’ Review: Adding Fraud to the Curriculum

Hugh Jackman is darkly charismatic as the real-life schools superintendent who admitted to stealing $2 million from his Long Island district.

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By Ben Kenigsberg

“Thoroughbreds,” the 2018 debut feature of the playwright Cory Finley , was not to every taste , but for acid wit and gliding camera moves, it could hardly be beat. Finley’s second feature, “ Bad Education,” which airs Saturday night on HBO, traffics in a kindred casual misanthropy. The movie offers an agreeably slick account of an early-2000s scandal in which a former superintendent of schools in Roslyn, N.Y., pleaded guilty to stealing $2 million from his district.

And like the character played by Hugh Jackman, the superintendent Frank Tassone, “Bad Education” initially keeps its cards close, playing tricks with viewers’ sympathies.

Frank, his hair gelled back and his face always wrenched into a grin, goes out of his way to be presentable. He remembers details about students from years earlier or recognizes their siblings. He meets with a parent who pushes for accelerated treatment for her third-grader. He maintains (or at least fakes) an interest in the lives of his teachers. He even welcomes an unscheduled interview with a school newspaper reporter, Rachel (Geraldine Viswanathan), encouraging her to dig deeper on a story about a school construction boondoggle. This, it turns out, is one of his less sharp moves. (The real-life student journalist who helped break the story of the scandal wrote about her experiences for The New York Times.)

Part of the strength of “Bad Education” is in showing how easily Frank gets others to sign on to his plans. When it comes to light that a fellow administrator, Pam (Allison Janney), has dipped into the district’s finances to the tune of more than $200,000, Frank is, at first, able to contain the fallout by noting the impact bad press would have. College admissions, property values, a forthcoming budget vote — all would be in jeopardy. For a brief time, Pam looks like the central player in the thefts, rather than one piece of a puzzle.

The 2004 New York Magazine article on which the film is based asked whether Roslyn residents allowed themselves to be duped by Tassone. The film, which adheres to the reporting with reasonable fidelity, is, at most, slightly more charitable in its assessment. (Ray Romano, terrific as the school board president, is an island of humanity in the sea of backbiting and self-interest.)

Finley didn’t write “Bad Education,” as he did “Thoroughbreds,” and if this film lacks the stylized, pitch-black verbal parries of that movie, he outfits it with similarly precise compositions and a jarring, percussive score. The screenplay, by Mike Makowsky, a student in Roslyn during the scandal , shows an ear for Long Island flavor and class tensions, and even the set decoration is attuned to details. The student journalists’ computer software is spot-on turn-of-the-aughts.

But it’s Jackman, whose smile appears increasingly wolfish as the film goes on (and as Frank’s face grows taut with cosmetic surgery), who ultimately owns “Bad Education.” It’s a plum part, sure, but also a deeply unsympathetic one — a chance for the actor to channel his charisma toward dark, mischievous ends.

Bad Education

Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. Watch on HBO .

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HBO's Bad Education Was Inspired By the Biggest School Embezzlement Case in US History

Hugh Jackman stars as Frank Tassone, an acclaimed superintendent embroiled in an $11 million fraud.

Bad Education , a new HBO original film starring Hugh Jackman, Allison Janney, and Ray Romano, tells the true story of the largest embezzlement scheme ever to target an American school district, which found students in Roslyn, New York robbed of over $10 million in funds.

Who is Frank Tassone?

Tassone joined the Roslyn, Long Island school district 1992, and quickly became a popular superintendent. He introduced initiatives like community service requirements for high schoolers, and foreign language learning for kindergarteners, programs that earned write ups in the New York Times.

Born in the Bronx, Tassone had earned two master’s degrees and a PhD at Columbia University’s Teachers College. There, he studied Dickens, and continued to promote literature in Roslyn, convening a local book club and increasing the membership of New York’s Dickens Fellowship literary club nearly tenfold during the years of his involvement with the organization.

In 1999, he penned an op-ed for the Times about his district’s efforts to find qualified teachers. “The increasing demands of a profession that is still not as well compensated as many others, and a strong economy...widens the income gap between teaching and more lucrative careers,” he wrote.

Still, schools in the community thrived throughout his tenure, with nearly all students completing high school and 95 percent going to college . A quarter of each senior class went on to attend a highly selective university. Schools in affluent towns like Roslyn, where the median income in 2000 was nearly 150 percent of the state average , often boast high student performance. But the community’s schools won acclaim for being among the best in the state and the country. In 2004, the Wall Street Journal named Roslyn High the 6th best public high school in the nation.

How did he defraud the school district?

In October 2002, then-assistant superintendent for business Pamela Gluckin (played in Bad Education by Allison Janney), was discovered to have stolen $250,000. The theft was uncovered when a Home Depot employee became suspicious when Gluckin’s son, John McCormick, used a Roslyn school's credit card to purchase construction material to be delivered to his home. It was later found that McCorkmick had purchased $85,o00 worth of supplies for his contractor business using the Roslyn credit card. Tassone convinced the school board not to press charges against Gluckin, arguing that it would cost the schools more money to continue paying her $160,000 annual salary during the years of legal battles that would ensue than it would be to demand that she repay what she’d stolen and allow her to quietly resign.

In early 2004, an anonymous letter was sent to the school board and local newspapers accusing the then 57-year-old Tassone of stealing from the schools. “We believe that Dr. Frank Tassone participated in this embezzlement scandal so as to support HIS lavish lifestyle, with the help of Ms. Gluckin,” read the letter. “He submitted ... his personal credit-card statements, bills for personal vacations and trips, and various household bills ... and included them in the cover-up.” The letter writer was never named, but the missive sparked investigations into Tassone, who resigned from his position after it was discovered that a contractor paid $800,000 by the school was actually Tassone’s partner of more than 30 years, Stephen Signorelli.

Tassone and Gluckin covered their tracks by roping in conspirators and sharing the ill-gotten cash widely. District employees with oversight jobs were given bonuses; Debra Rigano , Gluckin’s niece, worked as an accounting clerk for Rosalyn schools and stole more than $850,000. Investigators discovered that seemingly legitimate checks were written to vendors and were then cashed by the conspirators. One million in cash was drawn out of ATMs, while 74 unauthorized Rosalyn school credit cards were circulated among the district employees and their friends and family members.

Ultimately, more than $11 million dollars in thefts would be uncovered. The district had paid the rent on Tassone’s Upper East Side apartment, funded more than $55,000 in fees to a weight-loss doctor, $33,000 worth of his local dry cleaner, and $50,000 in flights to London in the Concorde. Gluckin used district money to buy four houses , while Tassone kept his Manhattan apartment, a house in the Bronx, and bought a home in Las Vegas with an exotic dancer. Hundreds of thousands were spent on cars, including a Jaguar and a BMW; Rigano bought a Rolex, and Gluckin paid her pool cleaner with district funds.

Where is Frank Tassone now?

Tassone, Gluckin, McCormick, Rigano, Tassone’s partner Stephen Signorelli, and the school district’s auditor Andrew Miller ultimately pleaded guilty to charges related to the millions in thefts. Gluckin was paroled in 2011; Tassone, who failed to appear for nine consecutive sentencing hearings before finally being sentenced in 2006, was paroled in 2010.

The disgraced administrators still receive their pensions , which, according to state law, they’re entitled to earn for the rest of their lives, even despite their felony convictions. Tassone takes in $173,495 annually.

In 2005, Tassone wrote a letter to the New York Times refuting aspects of their coverage. “My ‘lush life’ you write about included 14-hour days for many years while I moved the district forward and met the many goals of the Board of Education,” he wrote . “I hope the hard-working mothers and fathers in Roslyn also remember how much the schools improved as a result of my leadership. Their real estate values have increased like nowhere else in the country primarily because of the schools. The student population increased by 33 percent during my 12 years in the district.”

Newsday reported that, during a recent interview on the Coach Mike Podcast, Tassone revealed that he plans to watch Bad Education . “I’m afraid of seeing myself portrayed as being a liar and a cheat and a thief,” he said. “And I was a thief, no question.”

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The True Story Behind HBO’s Bad Education

HBO’s Bad Education tells the wild tale of former Roslyn schools superintendent Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman), a beloved educator who hoodwinked a tony Long Island town to the tune of $11.2 million over a dozen years. Based on a true story reported in New York Magazine and adapted by screenwriter Mike Makowsky, who was a Roslyn middle-schooler when the scandal broke, the film rollickingly details Tassone’s duplicitous double life.

While elevating the affluent North Shore enclave’s public school system into one of America’s best, Tassone and his larcenous accomplice, school business administrator Pamela Gluckin (Allison Janney), were embezzling millions — taking more than $1 million in cash withdrawals and buying homes, luxury vacations, high-end cars, boats, jewelry, and artwork. After Gluckin was caught, Tassone finessed her quiet firing to save his own face-lifted skin. It was only after a local student reporter began digging into the real reason for Gluckin’s dismissal that the town learned what had been going on.

But to what degree is the film’s story true? Using the original New York account plus subsequent reporting, including the New York State comptroller’s audit — which could only account for about $7 million of the missing money — here’s a character-by-character guide to instruct you.

Hugh Jackman as Frank Tassone

Like Hugh Jackman’s would-be widower, the real Tassone — a double master’s- and doctorate-degreed Bronx native — worked diligently for a community whose sense of entitlement is as inflated as the prices at the Kitchen Kabaret store we see as Bad Education opens. Deciding his worth was as high as those he served, Tassone helped himself to $2.2 million for rent on an Upper East Side apartment he shared with his longtime partner, Stephen Signorelli, a country home, trips, parking garages, and dry cleaning, among other expenses. He also owned a Las Vegas home that he shared with a second boyfriend, Jason Daugherty (who inspired the film’s Kyle Contreras character, played by Rafael Casal). As Bad Education notes, Tassone still draws a pension of $174,035 , even after pleading guilty to grand larceny and serving about three years of his four- to 12-year prison sentence. Tassone returned $1.9 million in 2006 and promised to repay the rest. He was released from jail in 2010.

Allison Janney as Pamela Gluckin

Like her real-life counterpart, Allison Janney’s affable school administrator earned about $160,000 annually and was brazen enough to drive a car with personalized “DUNENUTN” plates — a nod to the West Hampton beach house the district unknowingly paid for. As in the film, $223,000 of Gluckin’s bills, including for her son’s building supplies, led to her dismissal and relinquishing of her administrator’s license in 2002. Arrested in 2005, Gluckin admitted in 2006 to absconding with $4.3 million for a lavish lifestyle that included two more district-funded homes in Bellmore, New York, and Hobe Sound, Florida. She ultimately struck a plea deal, got a three- to nine-year sentence , and spent nearly five years behind bars while still drawing her annual $54,998 pension (half of it went to Roslyn’s restitution). According to HBO, Gluckin died in 2017.

Ray Romano as Bob Spicer

Spicer, a local real-estate agent and big Tassone booster, is a fictitious stand-in for the community at large. In a place where appearance is everything, Spicer is blinded by Roslyn students’ increased acceptance to top-tier colleges — and the soaring real-estate prices that benefitted the town’s bottom line, a.k.a. higher taxes! William Costigan, whom the New York Times described as “a close ally of Tassone’s,” was school board president in 2005, when a new assistant superintendent began discovering the true depths of Gluckin’s scamming.

Annaleigh Ashford as Jenny Aquila

Though Bad Education gives her a different name, Gluckin really did install her niece Debra Rigano as a district clerk — even bestowing a salary beyond what was budgeted. One of the younger Rigano’s responsibilities was arranging school board members’ trips to conferences, including Tassone’s boondoggles. Her freelance work as a travel agent garnered her commissions on the district trips she booked. Jenny’s petty video-game and Macy’s and Lord and Taylor purchases pale in comparison with the approximately $780,000 that Rigano ultimately admitted to stealing. After cooperating with prosecutors, she was sentenced to two to six years in jail.

Geraldine Viswanathan as Rachel Bhargava

Bhargava is a stand-in for real student-reporter Rebekah Rombom, one of two editors-in-chief of the high school paper The Hilltop Beacon. Rather than a puff piece evolving into the scoop we see in the film, a tip led to Rombom breaking the story about the real reason for Gluckin’s 2002 exit, though she wasn’t allowed to print her name. She likely obtained the information from a 2004 anonymous letter that began circulating and for which Tassone tried to do damage control. Once the Beacon story broke, Newsday and other newspapers began digging into the scandal that became the biggest school fraud case in the country .

Jeremy Shamos as Phil Metzger

Like Metzger in the film, a real Roslyn accountant named Andrew Miller conducted an audit and found about $250,000 went to Gluckin’s profligate spending. As with Metzger, the auditor let the crime go unreported and was brought back at Tassone’s urging years later after the D.A. got involved. Miller was ultimately charged with cooking the books to conceal millions of missing taxpayer money. He pleaded guilty to a felony and received a four-month sentence and 18 months probation.

Stephen Spinella as Thomas Tuggiero

The loyal Tuggiero hews closely to Tassone’s real domestic partner, Stephen Signorelli. The computer consultant was listed as the CEO of a company that submitted fake printing invoices for over $500,000, more than $200,000 of which he passed on to Tassone. Signorelli pleaded guilty to grand larceny in 2006 and was set to serve at least a year of his one- to three-year prison sentence.

Jimmy Tatro as Jimmy McCarden

The parallels between Jimmy Tatro’s construction contractor and Gluckin’s real son John McCormick are pretty accurate. McCormick’s home-center spending spree was indeed what led to the unraveling of his mother’s scamming in 2002. But rather than a tip from the cousin of the school board president’s wife as the film depicts, it was an eagle-eyed Home Depot salesperson who noticed McCormick was using a Roslyn district credit card. In 2006, McCormick was sentenced to five years of probation and 100 hours of community service for stealing $83,000. Were it not for that imprudent act, who knows how long Tassone’s and Gluckin’s greed could have continued undetected?

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Bad Education

Comedy series about a teacher who is a bigger kid than the kids he teaches. Comedy series about a teacher who is a bigger kid than the kids he teaches. Comedy series about a teacher who is a bigger kid than the kids he teaches.

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Bad Education

2004, Drama/Crime, 1h 44m

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A layered, wonderfully-acted, and passionate drama. Read critic reviews

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When an old friend brings filmmaker Enrique Goded (Fele Martínez) a semi-autobiographical script chronicling their adolescence, Enrique is forced to relive his youth spent at a Catholic boarding school. Weaving through past and present, the script follows a transvestite performer (Gael García Bernal) who reconnects with a grade school sweetheart. Spurred on by this chance encounter, the character reflects on her childhood sexual victimization and the trauma of closeting her sexual orientation.

Rating: NC-17 (Explicit Sexual Content)

Genre: Drama, Crime, Lgbtq+

Original Language: Spanish (Spain)

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Producer: Agustín Almodóvar , Pedro Almodóvar

Writer: Pedro Almodóvar

Release Date (Theaters): Mar 19, 2004  original

Release Date (Streaming): Jan 25, 2015

Box Office (Gross USA): $5.2M

Runtime: 1h 44m

Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics

Production Co: Canal+ España, El Deseo S.A., Televisión Española (TVE)

Sound Mix: Surround, Dolby Digital

Cast & Crew

Fele Martínez

Enrique Goded

Gael García Bernal

Ángel , Juan , Zahara

Daniel Giménez Cacho

Padre Manolo

Lluís Homar

Sr. Manuel Berenguer

Javier Cámara

Paca , Paquito

Petra Martínez

Nacho Pérez

Raúl García Forneiro

Alberto Ferreiro

Enrique Serrano

Pedro Almodóvar

Agustín Almodóvar

Esther García

Executive Producer

Alberto Iglesias

Original Music

José Luis Alcaine

Cinematographer

José Salcedo

Film Editing

Joserra Cadiñanos

Antxón Gómez

Art Director

Paco Delgado

Costume Design

Jean-Paul Gaultier

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Critic Reviews for Bad Education

Audience reviews for bad education.

I havn't watched many Almodovar films but besides â~Talk to Herâ(TM) I always feel his aesthetic style takes centre stage from any of the emotion of his stories and I felt that this was the case in Bad Education. Still, I will watch more Almodovar hoping to find something that will match Talk to Her

A drag queen convinces a film director to shoot a film about his childhood molestation by a priest. As I'm exploring Almodovar's oeuvre, I'm seeing similar subjects. There is almost always an element of abnormal sexuality, and the several scenes of homosexual sex check that box. Drag queens? Also check. But these are surface elements. The reason I think I'm not diving into Almodovar is that many of his films try to do so much at once. <i>Bad Education</i> is a love story, a noir, a political statement against the clergy's sexual misconduct, and a melodrama, and I think all the "styles" and subject matters collide. What results is such a hodgepodge that I think people are able to attach themselves to elements of the film while ignoring the whole. Overall, <i>Bad Education</I> is for Almodovar fans, and that's about it.

A movie you have to watch if you like serious drama, it's so complicated than it seemed. The combination of different philosophical elements was blended really well

"La mala education" or bad education as we know it better, is the first almodovar film not centered over women. But since he can't get too far from them, he based this movie on dragqueens and gays :) Well this introduction may be quite harsh, because this is a very good movie, and like every almodovar film, it brilliantly succeeds on every aspect. The European genius is always on top of the viewer regarding the mysteries conceded deep within his plots, making all his films highly unpredictable, a characteristic essential for every critic and moviegoer, and for me, the essence of every deep picture. This is the nearest of Pedro almodovar doing an autobiographical portrait of himself, although the film was never commercialized that way. Gael Garcia bernal is not one of the actors I admire, but he succeeded in delivering a good performance in the three roles he's been handed. Not a film for all tastes, but if you're In deep European films, you might not wanna miss this.

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