More Georgia pupils are expected to receive free tutoring because of flexibility the state was granted Tuesday.

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is allowing Georgia and five other states flexibility in administering No Child Left Behind, a federal education law criticized for being too rigid.

A greater number of pupils will now have access to tutoring provided by the federal law, and school systems will have the option of offering the free tutoring sooner to pupils in need of the services.

Only 13 percent of the schoolchildren eligible for the free tutoring took advantage of it last year, Georgia Department of Education spokesman Dana Tofig said. School systems will now be able to switch what is offered first -- tutoring services or school choice, which is the option of transferring to a school that is meeting the requirements of No Child Left Behind.

Previously, schools had been required to offer school choice as soon as they made the "needs improvement" list, a designation that meant the school did not meet certain federal benchmarks two years in a row. Tutoring was offered only if the school continued to struggle.

The new flexibility also groups "needs improvement" schools by how far they missed making adequate yearly progress requirements after their third year on the list.

The two highest-performing groups must choose from a list of consequences, which include extending the school day or school year, hiring an outside monitor and converting to a charter school. The state department will choose the corrective action for the schools in the lowest performing group.

"I think the new flexibility will provide systems and schools the opportunity to chart a course of corrective action which best fits the needs of their students," Georgia Association of Educators President Jeff Hubbard wrote in an e-mail.

"... Allow the classroom educators to determine what types of assistance can best move our children forward -- not bureaucrats in Washington with a 'one-size-fits-all' philosophy of educating Georgia's 1.65 million students in our public schools," he wrote.

The flexibility also gets the state involved in a more hands-on role in local education much sooner than it had been, Mr. Tofig said. A state monitor will be assigned full time to schools after five years on the "needs improvement" list. The monitors will be heavily involved in the direction of the school, including any staff changes.

Schools will learn whether they made adequate yearly progress and whether they are on the "needs improvement" list later this month.