States with the highest-ranked public schools

The WalletHub website offers people free credit scores and full credit reports, but it also gathers research and compiles lists ranking cities and states on various criteria.

As the 2016-17 school year gets underway in a number of areas, WalletHub has released a list ranking the quality of schools systems in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

The site uses data from 17 categories, such as graduation rates, dropout rates, pupil-teacher ratio, math and reading test scores, ACT and SAT scores and disciplinary rates, to come up with an overall rating for a state.

Based on WalletHub's findings, those looking for good school systems should go east. Eight of the top 10 states in the site's ranking are on the East Coast.

Here are the 10 states with the highest-ranked school systems, according to WalletHub.