Jason Robinovitz on Leadership, Education

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/06/04

Jason Robinovitz, Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel of SCORE at the Top Learning Centers, SCORE Academy, and JRA Educational Consulting, transitioned from a successful law career to education leadership after a personal loss prompted reflection. Over sixteen years, he helped grow SCORE’s revenue by 500%, emphasizing individualized student learning, ethical practices, and strategic delegation. Robinovitz guides pre-law students, manages over 100 educators, and integrates technology thoughtfully to enhance education without losing personal connection. His future goals include opening 8–12 new schools with mission-driven investors. His leadership philosophy focuses on incremental improvements, customer-first service, and balancing nurturance with guidance.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Today, we are here with Jason Robinovitz. He serves as SCORE’s Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel at the Top Learning Centers, SCORE Academy, and JRA Educational Consulting. Over the past sixteen years, he has played a pivotal role in expanding the organization, achieving a 500% revenue increase. He oversees the daily operations of multiple centers, manages a team of approximately 100 educators, and is responsible for strategic decision-making in customer service, staffing, training, marketing, and technology. Jason’s legal expertise has been instrumental in managing major business negotiations, including multimillion-dollar leases.

He is actively involved in educational consulting, specializing in guiding pre-law and future law students through the application process and helping families find appropriate therapeutic placements for their children. He is a member of several professional associations, including the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA), the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), the Secondary School Admission Test Board (SSATB), and he is a founding member of the National Test Prep Association (NTPA). He is also the son of Judy Robinovitz, the founder of SCORE at the Top Learning Centers.

Jason holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) with concentrations in Finance, Real Estate, and Leadership from the University of Denver. He earned his law degree from Emory University School of Law, where he focused on Business and Corporate Law. Before joining the family business, he practiced medical malpractice law for five years.

Thank you very much for joining me today. I appreciate it.

Jason Robinovitz: It is my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Jacobsen: A natural question when someone makes a major career transition is: Why the change? What inspired you to move from practicing law to leading SCORE at the Top and working in educational consulting?

Robinovitz: I had been practicing law for about five years at a prominent personal injury law firm in Fort Lauderdale. Tragically, a friend of mine, with whom I had studied for the bar exam, died in a car accident. That loss prompted deep reflection, and I concluded I was unhappy. I did not enjoy my job. It did not bring joy, meaning, or fulfillment to my life. A week later, I quit and took a couple of months off to reflect.

Fortunately, I had savings that allowed me to take that time. During this period, my parents had scheduled their first major international vacation — a three-week trip to China. My father asked me to go to the office of SCORE at the Top several times a week to pick up the checks and manually run payroll, as everything was still done by hand. I agreed, and while doing it, I realized I enjoyed being involved in the business.

I had always known that I would eventually join the family business. After spending some time helping out at SCORE at the Top, I decided the time had come to transition fully into the business and work alongside my family.

I made it a permanent role and have been there ever since. Now, I love it. I get to do something meaningful — working with kids, inspiring them, helping them reach the next step in their education, and impacting their lives.

Jacobsen: How is the assistance for pre-law students, particularly in finding the right fit? Is there a different approach to that?

Robinovitz: I have the expertise and background. I am an attorney, so it certainly helps when speaking to students considering law school to help them figure out whether or not it is the right decision for them. Then, it becomes a matter of finding out what they want: where they want to be after they graduate, whether they are looking to practice in a specific state or pursue a specific type of law. Do they not know yet what they want to do? Where are they qualified to get into — whether it is the Top of the top schools or a more typical law school? I help them navigate all that and then guide them through the application process.

Jacobsen: Now, when you have a team of over 100 educators, how do you delegate? How do you strategize how you train, mentor, and assign tasks?

Robinovitz: Thankfully, I have a phenomenal leadership team. It is not just me. We have multiple locations. Each location has its own Head of School. Many places also have someone who oversees the Learning Center — all the tutoring and test prep. Then, I have a team that handles all of our consultations, matching clients to the right consultant on my staff.

I believe in hiring smart people, showing them what needs to be done, and then letting them figure out the most efficient and effective way. That management style has worked very well for me. Of course, we have made some missteps and hired the wrong people along the way, but it has worked out very well. My team right now is fantastic. I trust them implicitly. I do not micromanage them.

At this point, I function more as their problem-solver. When they encounter an issue or uncertainty, I help them work through the problem and find the best solution. My staff then manages their teams beneath them. Naturally, I also have relationships with many of those team members, but my department heads are the primary points of contact with the teachers and educators.

Jacobsen: Do you see leadership, in that sense, as not about how many decisions you make but about making a smaller number of high-quality choices that can then be delegated?

Robinovitz: Absolutely. I try to focus my time on the bigger questions — the company’s long-term growth. I do much long-term thinking. When problems arise, I work with the person responsible to help them find a solution. Or, if they bring a problem to me, I help them work through it.

Between myself and whoever I am speaking with, we usually reach the right solution by discussing it, asking good questions, and making thoughtful suggestions. Ultimately, it is always best if the person who has to live with the decision makes the final call. I rarely say, “Do not do that,” unless I am absolutely certain it is a no. No. That absolutely cannot happen. We usually come to a decision together.

Jacobsen: I have been thinking recently about balancing guidance and nurturance in education and leadership. How do you balance nurturance and guidance in your leadership style? Does personalized education reflect that same balance?

Robinovitz: There is a delicate balance between nurturing and guiding. How I manage my team ties directly to our company’s core tenets, which are built on individualization and customization. How I approach someone on my team and discuss something with them can be very different from how I approach someone else. Understanding their motivations, what drives them, and what is essential to them impacts how I communicate so that we can be effective.

There are some people with whom I need to be very direct and others with whom I need to be more subtle or diplomatic to make sure the message lands and sinks in. We take that same approach in our schools and learning centers. We meet every student where they are and work with them from there. We are not a McDonald’s — we are not a one-size-fits-all operation with a rigid procedure for every student. We take each student for who they are, understand their strengths, weaknesses, fears, and aspirations, and tailor everything around them so they are in the best possible position to learn.

Jacobsen: When you are achieving a 500% revenue growth over sixteen years, that can be framed as compounded success. It is less just a financial metric — though that is, of course, important — and more about understanding the business, knowing the needs of the customers or clientele, and systematically addressing those needs with the long term in mind. How do you achieve that?

Robinovitz: I am a big believer in putting the customer first. We have always focused on customer satisfaction and service, and on making incremental improvements yearly. Every year, we ask ourselves, “What can we do better? What can we improve upon?” and make those small changes.

You cannot change everything at once—Rome was not built in a day. But by being hands-on with our customers and consistently evaluating and refining what we do, we have grown. I am also a big believer in honesty.

One of the things I always tell my leadership team is that if somebody comes in wanting something, and what they want is not the right thing for them, we need to educate them, not just give them what they want, but give them what they need.

For example, if a student came into our school wanting a one-on-one educational setting but was on the severe end of the autism spectrum, an unscrupulous school might say, “Sure, we will take them,” and try to get as much tuition as possible. We would not do that. We would say, “This might not be the right place for you for these reasons: we do not have the proper professionals in place, our staff is not specifically trained to work with a student at that level,” and so on. Then, we recommend other schools that are better equipped to meet that student’s needs.

Similarly, if a student is not a good social fit for our environment, we will be honest about that, too. I do not want a student here who will not thrive, and I do not want a parent who will be unhappy with what we are doing. A reputation takes a lifetime to build and only a day to tear down.

Jacobsen: Please give us an idea of the range of student capabilities you see. You have decades of collective experience — in this case, sixteen years — and many students. Some will be comprehensively excellent — outstanding in their abilities, motivation, focus, discipline, and attitude — and others will naturally be the reverse. It is a Gaussian curve. What is the range of capabilities and capacities for those coming to you? How does that look realistically to give us a sense?

Robinovitz: In many ways, we look like any other mainstream school, just on a much smaller scale. We have our high achievers. We have sent several students to the Ivy League and other ultra-selective schools.

At the same time, I would not want to categorize any students as “low achievers.” We have students who struggle more academically, and we work to help them find their next step — whether that next step is a community college, a state college, the military, entering the workforce directly, or even taking more time to figure things out. Some will go on to traditional four-year colleges. We meet each student where they are and nurture them to the best of our ability.

We see the full range of students—those who are incredibly high-achieving and intrinsically motivated, and others who struggle with engagement or direction, despite having access to ample resources. In many cases, these students haven’t thrived in traditional environments with large class sizes and standardized expectations. What they need is a setting where they’re seen, heard, and supported as individuals. By creating highly personalized learning environments, we help them reconnect with their goals, rediscover a sense of purpose, and build confidence in their own abilities.

Our largest classes serve six students. It might go up to eight students for an art class, but essentially, we keep the groups small. You can tailor the experience — for example, a student who struggles in math and science can take those subjects one-on-one while doing English, history, and foreign language in a small group setting.

What we have seen is that kids today are craving attention. We live in an attention economy, and attention is constantly being pulled in a million different directions — usually toward phones and the ten apps that command attention: text messaging, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and so on. It is so easy to get lost in that.

You cannot get lost in our classrooms because they are so small. We can see everything. We can say, “Hey, Scott, I see you are not paying attention. Put your phone away. You are not supposed to have it out in class anyway.”

Jacobsen: What about the integration of technology for enhanced student learning? How can this be done right, and how can it be done wrong regarding the end goal of student development?

Robinovitz: I love technology. I am a technophile — a technology nerd. I am very into all of that stuff. But while I am into it, I am also very cognizant that technology can often be a distraction rather than an enhancement.

When we implement technology, we try to do it thoughtfully, maximizing student attention and minimizing distractions. If that cannot be done effectively, we will go back to more old-fashioned methods. The way I learned—and likely the way you learned—worked out pretty well. Sometimes, the oldest ways are the best ways, and other times, you supplement traditional methods with thoughtful, carefully chosen technological tools.

Jacobsen: This brings up a common point about education systems: there are fads. Sometimes, ideas catch fire and become viral in social media terms, and later evidence shows they might not be as substantial as initially believed — they were overhyped. What are some things that might be fads coming down the pipeline or are currently on the rise? And what are some that show genuine promise regarding newer adaptations, especially as we incorporate digital technology into education?

Robinovitz: A lot of the EdTech out there is faddish. Going back to the idea of technology, many people believe that technology can replace certain elements of education. I do not think that — at least, not broadly.

We can replace certain things with technology, but people often want to apply it to much more than is practical, mainly because if you can build a system that runs itself, it becomes a perpetual money machine. That incentive can lead to overextending technology’s role, where it really should not replace human interaction, personalization, and thoughtful teaching.

A ton of money from venture capitalists, private equity firms, and others is going into many different EdTech initiatives. I have seen a lot of it. It looks great — they put on a great show and sell you on why it works. But in practice, it is often not as great as it seems.

We will see things stick with AI. AI is not going anywhere. The biggest challenge that every school is facing now—and certainly will face in the future—is how to train students in the ethical use of AI. Students must understand that learning a subject well and then using AI to enhance their work becomes a powerful tool. But they will never be as strong if they rely solely on AI without understanding the subject matter.

In scenario A, two things work together: human understanding and AI enhancement. In scenario B, you only have AI, and at the end of the day, it is only as good as the AI itself. Now, superintelligence may come—and will come—it is just a matter of when. But even then, I believe the human brain is highly adaptable, and we will find ways to continue innovating.

At one point, when machinery first came out, people thought manual labour would disappear. Instead, it increased productivity, and people found new things to do. So, I am not a doomsday person when it comes to AI. But it is still something we have to be careful with.

Jacobsen: What is your advice for educational entrepreneurs regarding legal considerations when expanding their business?

Robinovitz: That makes sense. The most significant issues are compliance with FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) and state and local regulations.

If you are an attorney running an educational business, you must also be aware of additional duties and ethical responsibilities that may be imputed to you because of your status as an attorney. That is something you always have to be cognizant of.

One thing I’m always careful about — given my legal background — is maintaining a clear boundary between offering general insights and engaging in legal practice. Within our business, I don’t give legal advice to clients or families. If legal issues arise in conversation, I always advise them to consult their own counsel. It’s important to avoid any confusion about the nature of the relationship or the source of advice. That clarity protects everyone involved..

Otherwise, the primary concern is regulatory compliance within the industry, ensuring you are fully compliant. FERPA is probably the most important regulation to keep in mind. It deals with student privacy and student records, and it is crucial to protect those records.

Jacobsen: Regarding primary goals for SCORE at the Top and JRA Educational Consulting, what are your aims for the next five years? And how do you plan to achieve those goals in a targeted way?

Robinovitz: Over the next five years, I aim to open between eight and twelve new schools — some in Florida and others probably outside the state. I plan to do this by raising outside capital from individual investors who are genuinely concerned about the state of education and want to contribute to something meaningful. The goal isn’t just maximizing returns, it’s about aligning with people who believe in our mission and want to help us expand our impact. But just to be clear, this conversation is purely informational; it’s not an offer to sell securities.

The idea is not necessarily that every dollar invested must maximize returns, although that would be great. Instead, I want to raise funds from people who believe in our mission, vision, and model and want to expand it to reach more students nationwide.

Jacobsen: Jason, thank you very much for your time today. I appreciate your expertise, and it was a pleasure to meet you.

Robinovitz: Thank you, Scott. Thank you so much.

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