An essay to test writing skill has been administered to North Carolina sixth and eighth graders for 10 years. In 1992-93, fourth graders were also tested. Each year compositions are graded by readers trained to apply a uniform set of criteria to the essays. Composition criteria are main ideas, supporting detail, organization, and coherence. A focused holistic score scale from one to four is used, and each paper is rated by two independent readers. Twenty-four percent of the 84,686 fourth graders scored at or above the mid-point of the 4-point scale, and 32 percent scored at 1 or 1.5. Just over 41 percent of the 84,369 sixth graders scored at or above the mid-point, and 21.9 percent received the lowest scores of 1.0 or 1.5. In the eighth grade, 57.9 percent of the 81,845 eighth graders wrote well enough to score at or above the mid-point, and about 10 percent scored at the lowest 1.0 or 1.5. Overall, writing scores improved slightly at grade 8 and declined slightly at grade 6 in comparison with 1990-91. Twenty-four tables and 56 figures (mostly bar graphs) present test results. (SLD)