In New York City ghetto schools eighty-five percent of the students are reading below grade level. This points to failure, not of the students but of the school system. In District One, although seventy-three percent of the children are Puerto Rican and eight percent are Chinese, only six of the district's nearly 900 teachers are bilingual. If teachers do not understand what their students are asking, they cannot answer in a language that the students understand. In order to address these problems, it is necessary to view schools as political institutions and to understand the political realities that enforce racial oppression and poverty in our society. Thus, Paulo Freire's concept of the "object world,""discovered, invaded, subjugated, governed, then educated, converted and assisted by another," can be applied to ghettos and ghetto schools. According to Freire, liberation can only occur if the oppressed become actively involved in their own education. Ghetto children must refuse to accept the unsatisfactory, passive roles that a monolingual, English speaking educational system imposes upon them. Bilingual/bicultural education is a beginning in the deconditioning process. It can create a consciousness in young people that will enable them to understand and defeat their oppression. (Author/GC)