US News & World Report issued a list of the 505 top performing high schools in the nation, with 18 of New Jersey's county vocational-technical schools making the grade.

According to the America's Best High Schools report by US News & World Report, Monmouth County's High Technology High School was ranked 7th in the nation among the nearly 19,000 schools studied nationwide.

In its first ever published list of the top high schools in the country, the magazine identified 505 schools as Gold, Silver, or Bronze medal winners. Of the 36 schools in New Jersey given the honor, 18 were operated by county vocational-technical school districts.

Council President Frank Gargiulo said the diverse list of award-winning schools -- from small magnet schools to large urban districts -- is affirmation that career and technical education works for all students. "US News & World Report was careful to not simply list schools with the highest test scores. They studied performance indicators against percentages of economically disadvantaged students to find those who are performing better than their statistical expectations," Gargiulo said. "The sheer number of vocational schools on the list shows that teaching students in an career and technical environment helps students succeed in academics, in college and in careers." (For a description of the magazine's methodology, click here.)

According to the magazine's methodology, developed by Standard & Poor's, a great high school must serve all its students well, not just those who are bound for college, and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes that show the school is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators.

County vocational-technical schools given the honor of the Top 500 are:

Atlantic County Institute of Technology

Bergen County Technical Schools -- Hackensack Campus

Camden County Technical School -- Pennsauken Campus

Essex County Vocational Schools -- North 13th Street Campus

Essex County Vocational Schools -- West Market Street Campus

Essex County Vocational Schools -- Bloomfield Campus

Hudson County Schools of Technology -- Jersey City Campus

Hudson County Schools of Technology -- North Hudson Campus

Middlesex County Academy for Science, Mathematics & Engineering Technologies

Monmouth County High Technology High School

Monmouth County Academy of Allied Health and Science

Monmouth County Communications High School

Monmouth County Marine Academy of Science and Technology

Morris County Academy for Math, Science and Engineering

Ocean County Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Science (MATES)

Passaic County Technical Institute

Union County Magnet High School

Union County Academy for Information Technology

©Copyright 2006 New Jersey Council of County Vocational-Technical Schools, Trenton, NJ