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Who would have guessed that a crime about school-budget fraud in Roslyn, Long Island, could make a compelling movie subject, but it does in Bad Education, a movie released online last weekend. (Spoilers ahead.)
With great acting, slow buildup, real-to-life characters (it’s based on a true story) and a comeuppance for all at the end, it’s a slow-burn crime drama well worth watching.
The story intertwines white-collar crime, schoolboard politics, a can-do school superintendent, and a budding high school journalist to create a fascinating look at how huge amounts of taxpayer money were stolen and kept secret for a decade.
And we’re not talking about chump change gambled away at a Las Vegas teacher’s conference, but over $11 million.
First, there’s the walk-on-water school superintendent, Frank Tassone, played masterfully by Hugh Jackman (once you get used to his only partially successful Long Island accent). He’s handsome, smooth, and charismatic in an understated way. He speaks to parents, co-workers, and teachers with deference and appears to really be listening. In reality, he’s leading a double (even triple) life.
Behind his Mr. Rogers friend-to-all persona, Tassone is diverting taxpayer money to underwrite, among other things, an Upper East Side apartment for him and his male lover, a house in Arizona for a different boyfriend, trips with his partner on the Concorde to conferences in London, the purchase of fancy suits, and his own plastic surgery.
Next, there’s his enabling assistant, Pamela Gluckin, the assistant superintendent of business affairs who cooks the books with such finesse that it’s not until an ambitious reporter from the high school paper starts digging that the scandal comes to light. Gluckin, played by Alison Janney (who also struggles with a Long Island accent), is less sympathetic. In her unthrottled greed, she bought herself and her family luxury cars, a beach home in Westhampton, and condos in Florida. Scriptwriters don’t give her as much back story as Tassone ,who rationalizes his theft as payoff for the frustrations for having been a good teacher, overlooked and underpaid.
Tassone convinces the school board that Gluckin’s fraud amounts only to $250,000. Hardly worth bringing down the school’s much vaunted reputation and the high property values that followed. “Harvard will just turn around and reject the students they’ve already accepted if we make this public,” Tassone says.
A coverup ensues with the board announcing Gluckin’s resignation due to a serious illness. Life goes on as normal until an article runs in the school paper drawing not only media attention but indictments against all the major players.
Hugh Jackman does a great job as the aging, vain, former teacher, now superintendent, who justifies what he did in the name of providing the best education he could for his district. His mixture of charm and hustle is so compelling, you’re left thinking he really believed his own bullshit.
In one particularly poignant scene, as investigators pour through boxes in the office next to his to make their case, Tassone is confronted by a mom insistent that her son get into an accelerated class. His world is imploding, yet he struggles to remain calm until he no longer can. It’s a funny, horrible scene that plays off the kid’s inability to pronounce the word “accelerate.” Tassone launches into a biting harangue about teaching children everything, giving it your all, being undervalued, unappreciated, and ultimately forgotten as parents and students move on with their lives. “But we never forget you,” he says.
None of it justifies the crime committed, but the viewer leaves understanding how the well-intentioned former teacher rationalized his misdeeds and kept them under the radar for so long by producing quality education, the reward of students getting into Ivy League schools, and higher property values.
In a sense, everyone who knew the high budgets that were being approved and saw the still-dripping ceilings in the hallways should have suspected fraud. Nobody wanted to look too closely.
Catch the movie not only for the satisfaction of watching what happens to the greedy but seeing how easy it is to become complicit in crime when nobody’s looking and everybody’s benefiting.
According to the New York State comptroller, Roslyn goes down as “the largest, most remarkable, most extraordinary theft” from a school “in American history.”
Ultimately, it prompted then-Governor George Pataki to impose new oversights on how all school budgets statewide are handled.
Toni Messina has tried over 100 cases and has been practicing criminal law and immigration since 1990. You can follow her on Twitter: @tonitamess.