Democratic leaders in the Georgia House of Representatives will hold a news conference calling on Republicans to address high failure rates on state tests.

Nearly 40 percent of Georgia's eighth graders flunked the math part of the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests this year, according to preliminary results. That's about double the failure rate of last year.

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State education officials threw out social studies scores on the test for sixth- and seventh-graders explaining that the test did not line up with the curriculum. Seventy to 80 percent of students who took the test failed it.

House Democrats plan to call on Gov. Sonny Perdue and State Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox to take action on the testing woes.