The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) was initiated in the mid-1960's to collect student achievement information over time and describe the data in ways meaningful to the nation's educational and civic leaders. This work presents the Florida perspective on how NAEP can be improved to aid educational decision-makers in the individual states. To produce a comparison of Florida and the nation, the Florida Department of Education conducted a replication of the NAEP testing program in the school year 1974-75. The conclusions could only reveal that Florida was above or below the national average. No one could say whether the national performance was good or bad because NAEP had no performance standards. No one could establish areas of academic need because skill competency levels were not defined and because NAEP procedures did not include the interpretation of the data. Alteration of the NAEP design for greater program impact includes (1) establishing what constitutes acceptable student performance; (2) interpreting the assessment data; (3) strengthening the relationship between NAEP and the individual state assessment programs; and (4) exerting more effort to have curriculum developers use the data. (Author/PN)