President Obama's money for schools

I did not get to watch the President's speech last night, as I was off being a parent at one of the many Know Your School Nights in town, so I'm playing catch up on the proposal today. It appears on the education side to boil down to about $30 billion in aid for education jobs, and $140 billion for infrastructure. The infrastructure money will include (as it should) roads and bridges, too, so the amount for schools is unclear. That's worth keeping a close eye on, particularly as (if this goes anywhere) it's decided who gets to decide.
Valarie Strauss is completely right that the infrastructure money is needed, and that it's probably only a start of what we do need. Andrew Rotherham is right when he says the temptation is going to be to give everyone a little bit, rather than give the sorts of chunks of money that get real things done. We've seen that locally with the capital boost the city gave the schools this past year; if you need more than a lick of paint, it isn't cheap.
So far so good on the capital side.
However:
I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with Rotherham further on the jobs side. He's completely off-base in terms of what reforms are needed in education funding at the state level (let's please get over the "bargain-basement teacher" mentality, already; fresh-out-of-college grads are not the best educators we can find), but he's right that there are reforms needed in funding.
This past year, Massachusetts was among the states that managed to weather the FY12 budget with fewer layoffs. Across the country, there were cities that laid off thousands of teachers, schools that are now seeing class sizes of over thirty across the board for lack of staff. Yes, that's because the economy is doing poorly and revenues are down BUT it's also because the funding mechanisms for K-12 education vary widely across the country. A number of states simply slashed education funding, and then left it to the districts to deal with. Because of the (greatly underappreciated) foundation formula and the commitment the Governor and Legislature made to stick to it, Massachusetts didn't face that.
This is not to say that education jobs money isn't appreciated. We used it for the years we had it and were grateful for it. With a sudden drop in tax revenues, needing to level out the schools is a good idea. But there is a chronic funding problem in education (see, just for starters, Bruce Baker here), and it's at the state level. Kids deserve to have their education sheltered from economic twists and turns.

UPDATE: Schools Matter has a suggestion of where the money can come from.

I should also point out that all of this supposes that the proposal goes anywhere, which does not at all appear certain.