The True Story Behind HBO’s Bad Education Rocked New York In The 2000s

If you can't get enough true crime, then HBO has a new movie for you. Premiering on April 25, Bad Education is the true story of a scandal that rocked the community of Roslyn on Long Island, New York back in the early 2000s. But, as the title of the film implies, this took place in the wild world of public school superintendents.

Bad Education was written by Mike Makowsky (I Think We're Alone Now), who was a middle school student in the Roslyn School District when the scandal took place. He met the real Frank Tassone, the district's superintendent, for the first time when he was a first grader because Tassone personally evaluated the reading level of all the new students. "Pretty atypical for a public school superintendent to make that kind of investment in the students," Makowsky told Variety.

Roslyn was known for its schools. Roslyn High School was ranked the sixth best high school in America in 2004, according to the New York Magazine article "The Bad Superintendent" on which the film is based. "A diploma from Roslyn High School is the closest you can get on Long Island to a ticket to Harvard," the 2004 article explains. Tassone was revered in the community for his efforts in keeping the schools at that level.

But, things took at turn in 2002 when Tassone's assistant superintendent for business, Pam Gluckin, was caught for using $250,000 worth of school district money for personal purchases and her mortgage. As reported in New York Magazine, Tassone was able to stay in the public's good graces as Gluckin was allowed to quietly step down. But, two years later, it was discovered that Tassone had stolen millions of dollars using "expense-account padding, vendor-bidding violations, check-record fabrications, even the creation of phony businesses," according to the article.

In total, $11 million was reported to have been stolen, but the people involved were only able to be linked to $8 million of it, as reported by the New York Times. In 2006, Gluckin plead guilty to stealing $4.3 million and was sentenced to three to nine years in prison, as reported by the New York Times. She was granted parole in 2011. Tassone was sentenced soon after to four to 12 years in prison after admitting to stealing $2.2 million. He was given an early release in 2010, according to The Island Now. In total, six people were charged in connection to the theft.

In Bad Education, Tassone is played by Hugh Jackman, while Allison Janney takes on the role of Gluckin. The film also features an investigation led by a student writing for the high school newspaper. The young journalist Rachel (Geraldine Viswanathan from Blockers) is an amalgamation, but it's true that a student reporter broke the first news story about the scandal. "It was very helpful to have an audience surrogate through whose eyes we could see the breadth of the scandal in real time," Makowsky told Variety.

Speaking to the local Long Island outlet The Island Now, Makowksy said he means the film to be a "love letter to my hometown, my school and the teachers who first believed in me, and without whom I would never be a writer today." But, that through penning it, he realized that Tassone wasn't just a "boogeyman" he heard about growing up in the area. "The truth is far more complicated,” he explained. “By almost all accounts, Tassone was a passionate educator and advocate for the students and community at large. I came to understand he fostered a whole town’s worth of strong relationships and made lots of us feel seen and heard — which made the betrayal that much more painful, even maddening."

And now, way more people will be maddened — and entertained — by the story, while Roslyn residents will be able to look back on the story that touched them personally 15 years later.