The MEGA Slogan and the Question of Going Back

September 30, 2026 - 07:41

Last week, the U.S. Department of Education posted an image to Facebook styled like an old woodcut print, with President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon above the words MEGA and "Make Education Great Again." The slogan reminded me of a poem I read in high school: Langston Hughes' "Let America Be America Again." Hughes wrote about a country that never was for many of its people, a place where liberty and equality stayed out of reach for the poor, the working class, and Black Americans. His poem does not simply reject the past. It demands that the promised ideal finally become real.

That tension sits at the heart of the MEGA phrase. The word "again" assumes there was a golden age of American schooling worth restoring. For some students, that era offered strong public schools, affordable college, and a path into the middle class. For others, it meant segregated classrooms, banned books, and doors closed because of race or income. Which past should the country return to?

The question matters because schools shape what children believe is possible. A slogan can inspire, but it can also erase. Before anyone rallies behind the idea of making education great again, they should ask what exactly they want to bring back, and who got left out the first time.