What's a Good Measure of Government Results?

I've been disappointed at both the state Progress Board and even more the Portland/Multnomah Progress Board - both seem to have a strong position from which to push for government accountability and an increase in bang for the taxpayer buck, but both seem to have little taste for really driving that process.

I attribute that to the origin of both bodies. Both were born of the late 80s/early 90s desire to avoid the painful economic downturn Oregon had just gone through with the implosion of the wood products industry. The ruling class decided that a Strategic Plan (and better yet, a Strategic Planning Process) would save them, and the state Progress Board was made the keeper of that flame. That credulous view of Strategic Planning haunts both organizations, and keeps them mired in otherworldly abstraction.

Compared to what, you ask? If I were running things, here's what I'd have the state Progress Board do - some of which they are already doing; some they want to do; some they don't yet realize they should do:

1. Use consistent terminology that is both accessible to the public and precisely defined - i.e. say "measures" not "benchmarks" when the rest of the world says "measures"
   
2. Use common and accessible units of measure for outputs (or better yet outcomes) - i.e. dollars per student-hour of classroom instruction
   
3. Relentlessly purge measures of activity; replace with measures of outputs
4. Market the measures to the public, and spend at least as much time talking with consumers of services as with providers when defining measures
   
5. Make frequent apples-to-apples comparisons to other states, other providers, and the private sector
6. Create and maintan a wall between the hard numbers and the fuzzy strategic planning happy-talk
7. Distinguish between measures, estimates, and goals
8. Require agencies to report using "blessed" units of measure, or charge them for the conversion
9. Don't be afraid of an occasionally adversarial interaction with an agency
   

I wonder how many of these will be covered at the Oregon Public Performance Measurement Association's inaugural meeting next week?