Henry Ford was famous for his assembly-line model of automobile production. In short, he was able to keep costs down and enable the average person to buy a Ford because he controled the process by means of simplicity: you can have any color you want, as long as it's black. Standardization was the name of the game. Control the process of production and keep it simple. One model, standardized parts (i.e. they did not have to be custom-fitted, as had been the case previously), a predictable manufacturing process, etc.
The control culture that Ford epitomized is similar to the culture in a number of independent schools: our product is X, this is how we provide it, you can have anything you want here so long as it's what we provide.
The problem, however, is that the control culture no longer works for our schools. As technology has progressed--and has become more disruptive, independent school families have become accustomed to greater choice and greater flexibility, to the point where they're looking for those characteristics in our schools.
Families are working on a "collaborative culture" model (they want input, in some way), and a "control culture" model no longer serves their wants/needs. If your school operates in the control culture model, can you see how you might be seeing a drop in enrollment, perhaps exacerbated by the current economic climate?
Control culture schools need to move toward becoming collaborative culture schools, although the trick will be for each school to determine just how collaborative it wants to be. Some will be more, some will be less. Schools will continue to remain diverse, just as before, but they will be diverse in different ways.
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