Your second link is from a forum in which one person claims to have personally hated the methods, or one of the methods, while at the same time saying that no one else complained, and not a single mention of teaching Scientology in the class itself.

Another person points out what he learned in a Study Tech course at Delphian School.

The study tech I learned at the Delphian School was, in order of importance: 1. You are responsible for your education. 2. Evaluate what you study. Decide for yourself if it is true. 3. The purpose of study is to be able to understand and use what you have studied. 4. 3 Barriers to study. I thought that was great.

And then contrasts it with Study Tech when he/she joined Scientology.

1. LRH is source. THE source. That's it. RTC will provide the appropriate version of LRH for you.
2. Your eternity and the future of every man, woman and child depends on understanding and applying Scientology exactly as LRH intended.
3. Every misunderstood must be cleared, or else there are penalties.
4. It's ok to get two crap definitions from a children's dictionary, but if you use a real dictionary and decide to clear just two of the 15 definitions, you are squirreling. This was a big contributing factor to me leaving. I just couldn't follow the rules.

The first link is a more thorough break down of what they teach, but it's about the Study Tech you learn when you join Scientology not what they teach in schools.

This Wiki article about the Applied Scholastics, which is the group distributing the books, has this excerpt:

In 1998, the group submitted five of its books for approval as supplemental classroom texts to the California Department of Education. The review board found no religious content to object to, although they did object to the lack of portrayals of disabled persons and people of color. The Southern California American Civil Liberties Union, however, objected on the basis that the books used many of the terms and concepts that the Church of Scientology uses elsewhere in its Study Tech.

All this really leads me to conclude, still is, that "secular" Study Tech isn't religious in nature, but they try hard to promote it because it teaches the same concepts you learn in Scientology along with similar wording, although it itself doesn't contain any religious subcontext. So later on if you end up studying Scientology you might be more susceptible to accepting it because you already understand part of its teachings. With that said I understand why people would strongly object to it. However, none of this suggest that Will Smith is scientologist because he donated money to a school teaching this program, perhaps he likes the method and believes it works, and as I've come to conclude it's secular in nature.

I think this can be compared to taking the Bible and stripping it from all supernatural and religious claims and leaving in all the philosophies and life guides, ect., and then teaching it to kids. Eventually, if those kids read the original bible they might be more accepting of it given that they might agree with some of its teachings already.

Now I dont know but are there any viable studies done to conclude that kids do in fact end up being more susceptible to accepting the religion if they've been taught some of its teaching already? Plausibly so, perhaps, but I don't know of any such studies.