"We have not directed teachers to use them," he said, referring to the speech-related classroom activities posted on the White House Web site. "We have schools and teachers that can use [the speech] and incorporate it into an instructional lesson, then that's fine. We are not interrupting lessons to show it."
In Carroll, Superintendent Charles I. Ecker told principals to have teachers notify parents by Friday if they were planning to watch the address. Since Wednesday, school officials there received dozens of calls, e-mails and even some walk-ins from people either for or against broadcasting the speech, said Carey Gaddis, a spokeswoman.
Bryn Upton, an American history professor at McDaniel College, said Obama's speech is not unprecedented, pointing to previous presidents who have addressed the nation's students: President George H.W. Bush did so, he said, and President Ronald Reagan did so twice - after the Challenger explosion in 1986 and again in 1988.
"The idea of the president wanting to do this is not, in and of itself, political. ... What is political about this is the opposition," Upton said, adding that the message is "a public service announcement about the importance and power of education ... made political by people who don't like Barack Obama."
"The idea of a public service announcement somehow being a socialist indoctrination is just over the top," Upton said. "Had a celebrity offered to record the same message - stay in school, work hard - both Republicans and Democrats would have loved it. ... This is really much ado about nothing."
William Jones, a Harford parent, plans to give his children a different kind of civic lesson Tuesday.
Angry to learn the school system won't broadcast the speech, Jones said he will take his son and daughter out of class to picket at the county Board of Education during the address to protest the decision - which he described as an "embarrassing" surrender to "extremists on the right."
Obama "is proof that no matter how poor you are, if you are well educated and you work hard, you can become president," said the Forest Hill resident, who recalls the addresses of Bush and Reagan. "That gives an excellent example for your children to see. ... He's a perfect role model for the kids, the perfect person to say to those children, 'You've got to be responsible for your classwork.' "
Jones says he will record the speech and watch it with his children later.
Annapolis High School Principal Donald Lilley said the president's speech would likely serve as a relevant learning tool for his students.
"Why don't we listen to it and think, what is it I can use?" Lilley said. "For certain classes in the building, I think it would fit and cause some high-level discussions. ... You don't have to agree with all you hear, but it's worth discussing. It's current."
Baltimore Sun reporters Nicole Fuller, John-John Williams IV and Laura Smitherman contributed to this article.
