Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (2002), there has been increased interest in using student achievement data (through standardized tests) to evaluate teacher effectiveness. Two U.S. Department of Education secretaries, Secretary Spellings and Secretary Duncan, have expressed interest in growth models and the need to improve the way teacher performance is evaluated. At the same time, there has been interest in creating longitudinal data systems so that student growth can be more accurately measured. The combined push for improvements in student assessments, teacher evaluation, and longitudinal student databases has led to the current educational agenda that lauds those systems that link student achievement to individual teachers. This paper describes four major value-added models (VAMs), concerns with VAMs as the "sole measure" of teacher effectiveness, some district and state examples, and other resources related to the issue of teacher effectiveness. (Contains 3 tables, 3 footnotes and 97 resources.)