This report was designed to help policy makers and concerned citizens understand the context, culture, and history that set the stage for Oregon's efforts to reform state government, including those areas of government that affect education. This text offers a "snapshot" of what Oregon is doing to improve results, such as setting benchmarks to measure progress. The state is crafting a decision-making process that avoids program proliferation and micromanagement, trusting people to do it right. Oregon is also using tools such as training, waivers from federal laws, intergovernmental agreements, and budget accountability to make programs meet broad community and state goals. Although the picture presented in this report is promising, there are some pitfalls. For example, although benchmarks measure what is important, there are rarely neat cause-and-effect relationships in the complex human areas that so many of the benchmarks address. Moreover, the data needed to support the benchmarking process often are not available or are not comparable over time. The report also explores larger lessons learned from Oregon's many waivers from federal laws and explores implications for federal policies. (RJM)