WASHINGTON — Six states are getting the okay to write their own prescriptions for ailing schools under the Bush administration’s signature education law.

It’s a softening from how No Child Left Behind currently works — with schools having to take certain steps at specific times for missing math and reading testing goals. Critics have complained that the approach is too rigid and treats schools the same regardless of whether they miss the mark by a little or a lot.

The states getting more freedom under a pilot program are Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Maryland, and Ohio. The education secretary, Margaret Spellings, made the announcement during a speech yesterday in Austin, Texas.

The states that won approval have come up with plans to more closely tailor solutions to individual schools’ problems and focus resources on schools in the worst shape.

“We expect to see a closer fit between the causes of school underperformance and a focused attention at repairing those sources of failure,” the director of an education think tank at Stanford University and the chair of a panel that reviewed the state proposals, Margaret Raymond, said.

Examples of changes the states plan to make include requiring schools to offer tutoring earlier than is currently called for and a greater reliance, in Indiana for example, on testing throughout the year to catch academic weak spots.

In Florida, schools with low-performing students will likely be assigned teachers who have experience teaching similar students successfully.

Maryland is placing more emphasis on training principals. It’s common under the law for failing schools to replace their principals. “We think principal leadership is key. It’s not just changing a principal, it’s ensuring principals have the necessary skill sets,” Maryland’s schools superintendent, Nancy Grasmick, said.