The people on the board issue a biennial report, called the Oregon Benchmark Performance Report. And they are not impressed. Under the label of quality jobs, for example, the report for 1999 says the state deserves an A for allowing the location and development of new companies. The correlation between dropping out and getting a decent-paying job is, well, inverse. Or take the report's assessment of Oregon's progress in the battle against child abuse.
Child abuse is up.
Not so hot. Up for the year. That's not good. The board did give some A grades in specific subareas. But on the big overall topics, we didn't do too well.