ALBANY, N.Y. (July 16, 2026) — The public education advocacy organization Alliance for Quality Education responded to reports that Salamanca High School, located on the Seneca Nation, will begin using a humanoid robot as a teaching assistant in classrooms this fall:
“We want our children prepared for the future, including a strong foundation in STEAM not just STEM education, learning how to create, build, problem-solve, and engage with technology. The suggestion that our communities don’t want these opportunities for their children is a convenient fiction that others know what’s best for us better than we do ourselves,” said Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari, Co-Executive Director, Alliance for Quality Education.
“This is following a pattern that has existed for far too long of allowing underserved students to become guinea pigs for untested ‘innovation’ in education, this time for replacing human relationships with machines. The years when children are developing socially, emotionally, and academically are not years we can afford to outsource to a robot, no matter how human it looks.
“We have spent decades fighting to address the funding inequities that have historically left Black, Brown, Indigenous, and low-income communities behind, including the most basic technology like internet access and computers. It took a global pandemic for New York State to fully acknowledge the consequences of chronic underfunding and begin to address those technology gaps.
“A robot in place of a human educator does nothing to close that opportunity gap. Families have every right to ask why those resources are being spent on a robot, profiting a corporation instead of investing in teachers, counselors, and other supports for students.
“We should all be concerned about this type of technology, which raises so many questions about equity, privacy and child development. These are conversations that should happen openly, with parents, educators, students, and community members at the table. Yet time and again, parents and caregivers, especially in BIPOC communities, are presented with decisions after they have already been made. We owe families better than that.
“Children need relationships, mentorship, encouragement, and human connection, especially now, when so many of their daily interactions are through screens. We should not have to defend what decades of research has proven about what students need to be successful. Students deserve the benefits of technology without sacrificing the human relationships that help them learn, grow, and thrive, full stop.”