Efficiency considerations in delivering special education services to persons with severe mental retardation

The basic question addressed in this paper is whether formal benefit-cost and effectiveness-cost analyses might allow us to determine whether the outcomes of particular special education services are being offered in their most efficient manner. In attempting to answer this question, we focused upon measuring as many of the cost and outcomes as possible (in both monetary and other terms) from two specialized schools serving youth with severe mental retardation. We examined a number of alternative assumptions for illustrating some of the problematic issues in the use of such evaluation techniques.