:

Pennsylvania has the nation’s starkest spending gap between rich and poor school districts, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Friday, and that must be remedied.

Statewide, poor districts like Philadelphia spend 33 percent less per student than wealthy districts, the biggest such gap in the country, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

In the poorest quarter of Pennsylvania districts, current expenditures per student – with the exception of most federal funds – are $9,387. In the wealthiest fourth, districts spend $12,529, not counting most federal funds.

“The children who need the most seem to be getting less and less, and the children who need the least are getting more and more,” Duncan told reporters Friday on a conference call.