With the combined U.S./California financial house of cards reeling in earnest, there is a certain surreal quality to yet another state ballot measure that would increase debt significantly. November’s Proposition 1A asks voters to OK almost $10 billion in bonds to begin work on a high-speed rail project that, when finished, would stretch from San Diego all the way to Sacramento and San Francisco. The eventual final cost of this grand plan is not known. Estimates are all over the map. Annual operating costs are little more than hopeful guesses as well. Still, the concept is intriguing. Electric trains racing north and south at speeds of over 200 miles per hour. Los Angeles to San Francisco in under three hours. Projected relief on the state’s highways and in the air. Great stuff. But, for San Mateo County residents, there is a troubling reality: No county in the state would bear the brunt of the proposed system more than this one. High-speed rail would follow the Caltrain right-of-way. Caltrain is also planning to go to a modern, electrified setup in the future. How many sets of tracks along the Peninsula would be required for all of this? Four, five, six or more? And what about freight trains? Where do they go? High-speed rail experts can’t say with finality. Studies have not been done. It’s too early in the game. And how about eminent domain? Will private property be seized to make way for a new rail line? No one can say for sure. And then there is the matter of grade separations and the very real possibility of walled berms dividing county communities in half. Again, the high-speed buffs can’t answer. In the end, local voters are being asked to approve something sight-unseen. They will be casting their ballots blindly. It’s not a formula for an intelligent decision.

The massive seismic shift in the ethnic makeup of San Mateo County’s public school student body is continuing unabated. Statistics released this summer indicate that an inexorable trend that began many years ago rolls on with few signs of diminishing. According to the latest numbers provided by the state, local public schools on the Peninsula contained 88,983 students in grades kindergarten through 12 in 2007-08, a very slight increase over the previous year. Of those youngsters, 34.7 percent were of Hispanic descent; 32.6 percent were Caucasian. Asian and Filipino children were 11.8 percent and 10 percent respectively and the rest were African-American, Pacific Islander and individuals representing other categories. Hispanic pupils became the county’s largest single ethnic student entity two years ago. That was an historic first for the Peninsula. To keep matters in some perspective, in 1970, the county’s public schools contained about 125,000 students, roughly 113,000 of them Caucasian. So, over a period of 38 years, the county has lost something on the order of 84,000 white kids. So-called minority youths have gone from 12,000 to almost 60,000 during that same time-frame. All of this has implications for local public schools, from test scores to graduation rates and fluency in English to four-year college admissions. The state’s most recent figures measure only public school pupils. Those in private and parochial schools are not involved in the data. In San Mateo County, one in every six children attends a non-public school.