Schools across the state are expecting droves of students to attend summer school this year after thousands failed a state-mandated math exam.

School districts are hiring more teachers and expanding class sizes to accommodate the anticipated influx. Officials are unsure how many of the nearly 50,000 Georgia eighth-graders who failed the math portion of the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests will take classes this summer.

Fifth- and eighth-graders must pass the math CRCT before they can be promoted to the next grade. Summer school is not required to retake the test, but it is recommended.

The state has promised $1.4 million to help the districts offset the costs.

State officials say they expected more students to fail because the test was tougher this year. The scores are preliminary. Final statewide scores on the exam will be released in June.

State education officials don't track students after they fail the CRCT, which means they don't know what happened to the 36,000 Georgia eighth-graders who didn't pass the math CRCT in the last two years, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. It's up to each of Georgia's 180 local school districts to decide the fate of students, the newspaper reported.

Some students enroll in summer school, retake the test and pass. Others appeal their scores and are promoted. Some are held back.

At least one testing expert said failing to track what happens to students makes it hard to tell whether Georgia's no-pass, no-promotion law is effective. Ron Dietel with the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing at UCLA called it "a situation that would produce very messy outcomes and not good decisions," the Atlanta newspaper reported.

The high failure rates were revealed last week, shocking students and enraging parents who say their children weren't taught what was necessary to pass the tests. Math and reading CRCT scores are part of what Georgia uses to meet federal No Child Left Behind standards.

State Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox threw out social studies CRCT scores for sixth- and seventh-graders after announcing that 70 to 80 percent failed that portion of the test. Social studies scores are not used for promotion. Cox has said the math scores are accurate.