The New York Immigration Coalition says the city's school system is failing to provide adequate translation services for parents. In a report released Tuesday, the coalition says more than half of the nearly 200 parents it surveyed had trouble accessing interpreters for non-English speakers.

About one million children are in the New York City School system; the coalition says about half of the students, or around 500,000, speak a language other than English at home.

The Coalition's Kim Sykes said she's optimistic the situation will improve. "We believe that Chancellor [Carmen] Fariña definitely is and wants to do better, and they must address the barriers that our report shows that parents are facing," she said.

The Department of Education says it's committed to expanding access to language services.