Bad Education: A Startling School Scandal

Looking for something that’s both quick and meaty to watch this weekend? I offer up Bad Education, featuring the inimitable Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney, and a rollicking script from Mike Makowsky that details the biggest public school embezzlement scandal in American history. It’s a fun ride.

Jackman plays Frank Tassone, a school superintendent on Long Island, New York who is credited with elevating the Roslyn High School to the #4 school in the country. Everyone loves Frank: a former English teacher, he cares about his students, wants everyone to succeed, and under his stewardship, everything’s coming up roses. Also, thanks to capitalism, a good public school means great property prices, so the members of the school board are thrilled that their real estate prices keep skyrocketing. What could go wrong?

Well, things start unraveling when they discover Pam Gluckin (Allison Janney), the Assistant Superintendent and Frank’s right-hand woman, has been misusing school funds to pay for her home renovations and other expensive habits. The accountant and school board are shocked - Pam is such an upstanding member of the community! - but on Frank’s advice, they agree to hush it up. Pam is fired, but the cause is not publicized, and everyone seems content to treat her as the only rotten apple. Unfortunately, the beloved Frank Tassone was fully involved in this embezzlement scheme, and as the movie progresses, more details come to light about his bizarre personal life and various indulgences, leading to the eventual theft of millions of dollars from the public school system.

Bad Education is a fun ride with great actors who all come together to tell one of those “so crazy it has be to true” stories. This scandal certainly is an example of the things human beings get up to when everyone is content with the status quo and not keen to ask too many questions. Some bits are fictionalized to streamline the plot (for example, Geraldine Viswanathan plays an intrepid student reporter, who is a composite character of all the actual students who broke this story in the high school paper well before it got picked up by national news media), but the real-life story was so over-the-top that you don’t need to do much more to juice up the story. There’s a scene towards the end where you are just staring at Frank’s face for a good long while, and you remember what a phenomenal actor Hugh Jackman is. So give this movie a shot - it’s not like you’re doing anything else this weekend anyway.