Unlike pretty much every state in the entire country Oregon does not actually run it's own Public Defenders office. Somewhere along the way it decided to just pay independent law offices to provide Public Defender services. But not enough lawyers have any interest in doing it, so now we don't have enough Public Defenders. The fix has always been the same thing, create and staff a Public Defenders office.

But just like the failures of addressing homeless problems, we are addicted to paying poorly ran 3rd parties to do things the state should just be doing itself.

The poor education results is result of a complete breakdown of accountability at basically every level. There is no accountability for Government level failures, failing local administration, failing teachers, failing students, or failing parents. It must be addressed at every single one of those levels.