I got the keys to my first history classroom at Roosevelt High in 1969, when California was in the top ten states in per-pupil funding in the country. 

Then in 1978 voters passed Prop 13, with its controversial loopholes for corporate property taxes. Revenue plummeted, and schools faced chronic funding shortages and program cuts. 

California — then the fourth-largest economy in the world, behind only the U.S. as a whole, China, Germany, and Japan — fell into the bottom ten states in per-pupil funding. We were spending as little on California students as Mississippi spent on its students.  

Help came with funding guarantees in 1988. And in 2012, California voters passed Prop. 30, which taxed the wealthiest 2% to generate billions of dollars every year directly for classroom and instructional needs. 

It took two years of collecting the increased taxes on millionaires and billionaires for real money to be seen in schools and on the negotiation tables up and down the state, where educators used the power of collective bargaining to advocate for things like better pay, secure healthcare, lower class sizes, arts education, and more counselors, librarians, school psychologists, and nurses.   

Prop 30 was a lifeline, and then, four years later, voters passed Prop. 55 to keep those tax rates in place.  

Now the rates are set to expire in 2031, potentially giving California’s wealthiest households a major tax cut.  

Prop. 3 on the November ballot would permanently continue the existing tax, keeping the current rates for California’s 2% wealthiest residents where they have been for more than a decade. Prop 3 doesn’t raise taxes on anyone. If Prop 3 isn’t passed this year, LAUSD could stand to lose $869 million annually starting in 2031.  

Prop 30 did not bring us back to the top ten in per-pupil spending — it only brought us to the middle of the pack. We need Prop 3 to pass just to stay there. Our schools will still be underfunded, and we will need to keep working together to press the state to put more money into our schools.  

Think of what we and all the educators in the state could do if we were back to where California was before Prop 13 when I started teaching — at the top in how we prioritize our students. Join me in voting YES on Prop 3 as a step in the right direction. 

John Perez is a retired Roosevelt High history teacher. He is the president of UTLA-Retired and a former president of UTLA.