The five articles in this journal issue are intended for use by school administrators, and provide information on how to organize effective programs for achieving student writing competency. The first article discusses the development of New York State's Preliminary and Regents Competency Tests in Writing, analyzes sample student responses to one test, suggests ways of improving student writing, and lists topics related to achieving writing skills that need to be addressed. The second article describes the development of one school writing program, identifies myths about the teaching of writing, describes in concrete terms the roles of teachers and students in a writing program, and offers advice for establishing a similar program. The third article discusses how to prepare remedial students for essential writing competencies. The fourth article presents reasons for setting up a tutorial writing center, discusses the advantages of tutoring over regular classroom instruction, and describes how to train tutors. The final article analyzes the results of the Regents Competency Tests for students in one community, and concludes that teaching the mechanics of writing does not insure that students will be able to transfer the knowledge to the writing of entire compositions. (FL)