Closing the achievement gap between poor kids and their wealthier peers is critical to the nation’s future, and that goal can be reached, said the founder of Harlem Children’s Zone.

“If we keep doing what we’re doing to our kids, we’re going to destroy this nation,” Geoffrey Canada recently told a packed room of 500, mostly educators, at the Neal S. Blaisdell Center. “We have to come up with a way to level that playing field. It’s complicated, it’s tough, but it can be done.”

Harlem Children’s Zone aims to give poor children in a 97-block section of New York City the sort of “cradle to college” support that other children take for granted. That means early education, high-quality teaching, proper nutrition, health care, counseling and more.

Researchers have found the zone’s two public charter schools have raised academic proficiency rates for disadvantaged students to the point where they match those of students as a whole.

The Children’s Zone relies on philanthropic donations, including from Wall Street, along with public funds. Canada, president of its board of directors, said that adequate funding is key and American society needs to get its priorities straight.

“People don’t think we have enough money,” he said. “I totally reject this. We have plenty of money. We are spending it in the wrong ways. We are happy to spend that money if that kid goes to jail.”

Along with its two Promise Academy K-12 Charter Schools, the Children’s Zone works with students at seven other regular public schools. It offers “Baby College” parenting workshops, preschool, after- school programs, family counseling and a college success office. Started as a one-block project in the 1990s, it now serves more than 13,000 youths from birth through age 23 annually.

In one study, Harvard researchers Roland Fryer Jr. and Will Dobbie tracked students chosen by lottery to attend a Promise Academy school versus those who did not get in. They found that attending a Promise Academy elementary school could close the gap in achievement between black students and white students in math and English. The same was true in math for middle school students.

In Hawaii’s public schools, the difference in proficiency rates for “high needs,” or disadvantaged students, and their peers is about 32 percentage points in English and 28 points in math. Students with “high needs” include those with low incomes, in special education or still learning the English language.

Canada grew up in the Bronx, raised by his mother. He said he struggled to read until he heard the book “Green Eggs and Ham.” He was hooked and soon devoured the entire Dr. Seuss collection. As he grew up, he found solace in poetry, going on to study psychology and sociology at Bowdoin College in Maine.

Canada recalled how his professors tried to talk him out of his dream of becoming a schoolteacher and pushed him toward medical school after he aced a couple of science courses.

“People say, ‘Why would you waste your life going into education?’” Canada said. “That’s one of the first challenges that we have. We have a profession that people don’t respect.”

He earned a master’s in education from Harvard University and as a teacher focused on needy students. He led the Children’s Zone as its CEO for about 20 years until 2014, when he moved to its board.

The best teachers should be working with the students who need the most help, but typically the opposite happens, and the least experienced or valued teachers often end up in poorer areas, Canada said.

“All the incentives are upside-down,” he said. “We are not putting resources where they really matter and where they pay off, which is with the folks that work with those kids … . The hardest thing to do in education is to actually teach inside a classroom with kids in the deep end of the pool.”

At the same time, he stressed, “My belief is if you cannot teach, you should get another job.”

A charismatic speaker, Canada got a standing ovation at the free event on March 11, which was sponsored by the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation, Hawaii Community Foundation, Kamehameha Schools, Hawaii Pacific Health and the Daniel K. Inouye Institute.

“A couple of things really resonated,” Darlene Robertson, director of professional development and outreach at Assets School, said afterward. “One of them is the importance of kids believing in themselves and having faith to go on … that’s really, really, really important.”

The other, she said, is using educational techniques that are “validated by science.”

Promise Academies have longer school days and an extended school year to help kids catch up, plus lots of other support, Canada said.

“We have a whole group of social workers who work with us, we have some of the best sports, some of the best arts — we engage our kids in every way possible,” he said.

Canada has written two books, “Reaching up for Manhood: Transforming the Lives of Boys in America” and “Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America.”

Harlem Children’s Zone inspired former President Barack Obama, who used it as a model to launch the “Promise Neighborhoods” initiative with federal grants.

Jill Fletcher, a college and career readiness teacher at Kapolei Middle School, said she was encouraged by Canada’s message to stay in the classroom and do whatever it takes to connect with each child.

“So many people will tell you, ‘Oh, when are you going to be a principal, when are you going to go on to do something else?’ — as if being a teacher in the classroom isn’t the most important thing,” she said. “I wish we could see that change in our society.”