WASHINGTON — Cecilia Medina of Denver loves the free tutoring her daughter receives as a result of the No Child Left Behind Act. Teacher Debra Kadon is angry the law's focus on testing has turned her Green Bay, Wis., middle school classroom into an assembly line.

Five years after President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law, passions about its impact run high.

The controversial law changed the climate of public schooling in the United States by requiring that states not only measure whether all students are learning the basics but also punish those schools whose kids aren't.

Students are being tested on math and reading in most grades, states are using those test scores to flag thousands of schools for poor performance each year, and low-income parents are finding an unprecedented opportunity to ship their children to better schools or take advantage of free tutoring.

"Last year, it really helped with the reading," Medina said about the after-school help her elementary school-age daughter gets at no charge. "All of the parents who were included in the program were really happy."

That's the kind of success U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is expected to tout Monday as she addresses the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about the law's impact.

But there are plenty of doubters as well who say the law's heavy emphasis on testing has squeezed out time for the arts, physical education and other elements of schooling that capture children's interest and keep them in class. The National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union and a critic of the law, issued a report Sunday filled with lamentations from teachers.

"The joy of teaching and learning is being sucked out of our schools," wrote Kadon, a middle school teacher. "Children are being forced to endure endless hours of rote skill practice at the expense of higher-level thinking projects (and) activities."

The law requires states to test students in third through eighth grade in math and English and once in high school. Schools make "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) not only if they do well overall, but also if every student subgroup (blacks, whites, disabled students, non-English speakers, etc.) in every grade either scores above a level set by the state or shows steady progress from the previous year.

About a quarter of the nation's 90,000-plus public schools failed to make AYP in 2004-05, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Two-thirds of Hawai'i schools failed to achieve the benchmark.

High-poverty schools that miss improving even one group for multiple years must give parents the opportunity to transfer to another school or provide free tutoring beyond the school day. After five consecutive years, they must restructure the school by closing the school, replacing the staff or undertaking some other major step.

Critics, including the National School Boards Association, say helping schools — not punishing them — is far more effective. The association is among 100 civil rights, religious and education organizations that have formed the Forum on Educational Accountability to push for changes in the law to reduce sanctions against schools.

The law expires next year, so Congress will spend the next few months deciding what changes to make.

With Democrats now in control of Capitol Hill, congressional leaders are promising to find more money so states can implement the requirements more quickly. Since 2002, lawmakers have provided states with nearly $56 billion less than what was authorized under the law.

The law also requires schools to have "highly qualified" teachers in every classroom and that states draw up standards so that schools with a high crime rate can be identified and helped. All students also must be proficient in math and English by 2014 under the law.

But while it requires student proficiency, qualified teachers and safe schools, it allows states to define those standards. That's been a big failing in the law, said Philadelphia Schools Superintendent Paul Vallas, who would like to see more national standards.

Still, he likes the law.

"It's forced cities to take greater responsibility for their individual schools," said Vallas, who once ran the Chicago school system. "And it's forced schools to be more innovative about finding ways to improve student performance — even when not having enough resources."