Even by Hollywood standards, school district fraud can be dramatic.

As the new HBO film Bad Education chronicles, Roslyn, New York, School Superintendent Frank Tassone led an embezzlement scheme that siphoned off some $11 million meant for students. For more than six years, he and his assistant superintendent, Pamela Gluckin, lived the high life. Meanwhile, the school board remained blissfully ignorant of the criminal activity committed by its highest-paid employees.