It was your basic “study hard, go to school, etc.” speech; I think it was in the context of announcing some kind of new funding for education that Bush was going to provide.
In any case, it was broadcast live on radio and television, and not sent only to schools and was not part of a lesson plan that suggested that children read up on Bush. It was probably inappropriate, because Bush I was trying to use the backdrop of a school to show that the GOP was not ignoring domestic issues, but it was a different class of thing altogether from Obama’s Dear Leader speech.
I believe President Reagan gave a speech in 1988 which was nationally televised to students. The difference is Reagan wasnt trying to indoctrinate the students.
The differences are stark. Obama is doing this at the beginning of his presidency in order to troll for votes. Reagan's speech was in the last year of his second term. Reagan had no cheerleading section of Hollywood and musician types pledging servanthood to him. Reagan told the kids to "ground themselves in the ideas and values of the American Revolution." Obama is claiming that he's bringing a new revolution. Reagan wasn't a socialist. Obama is a statist who has been steeped in radical, anti-American rhetoric since his youngest days.
The problem with those who say, well, Reagan gave a speech to students in 1988 and Bush gave a speech to students in 1991, so there's really nothing different about Obama giving a speech to students in 2009 is the fallacy of the undistributed middle: A is M and B is M; therefore, A is B. It just isn't so: Jets have wings. Birds have wings; therefore, jets are birds. Reagan and Bush were presidents and Obama is a president, but Obama is certainly no Reagan or Bush.