Guaranteed seems very strong claim to aay about education of future generation and what could they do about particular field. The only thing that might warrant usage of this word is if you have a time machine, but obviously you don't.
I think the point is that "education" as a field is so heavily infested with parasites and grifters that it can easily eat extra $200M and then have nothing to show for it.
As opposed to Seti, who will have something to show for it?
I really find it difficult to believe that 200m into science education funding will make less of an impact on the chances of finding alien life than directing it at Seti.
$200M, even narrowed to "science education", will turn into couple bullshit grants, and/or a deal with a commercial vendor to upgrade computers at some facility, and/or (most likely) a new sports stadium, because US universities for some reason love to spend ridiculous amounts of money on sports facilities.
Point being, education is a very large field, with a very large capability to burn money in operational expenses, spending it all on doing a little bit more of the same thing it's already doing.
SETI, in contrast, is a small, underfunded corner of STEM R&D, at the bleeding edge of astrophysics, signals processing and a bunch of other fields. Pouring $200M there has a much greater chance of pushing some actual research or technology development, with gains flowing back to society and economy (including to science education). SETI has much less space for grifters, and it's much easier to spot money going the wrong way.
Or, in short, a cup filled with water will make more visible impact when poured into a portable bottle, than when poured into a lake.
California has some of the best funded public schools in the country. California has some of the smartest technologists and inventors in the world. California has mostly crappy public schools. Clearly adding money has very low marginal utility in the current educational marketplace.
