When Frank Marasco was young, his school bus driver, Ray White, left quite an impression.

As reported in the November 2009 issue of the School Transportation News, states were expected to change laws or put new policies in place to better align with the federal Race to the Top competitive grant program selection criteria. The article anticipated that states would change laws that limit the number of charter schools in order to increase their chances of winning a share of the funds.

This past year’s state budgets, as painful as they may have been for K-12 education, could have been worse according to some analysts. Yet as bad as things might be right now, the worst is still to come, they say.