The Education Trust has recently published a less-than-brief but helpful policy brief exploring the debate over the so-called "value-added" assessment system initiated in Tennessee in the early 1990's. Ed Trust strongly urges states and districts to cease dragging their feet on embracing value-added systems that the advocacy group convincingly argues is critical to improving the quality of the nation's teachers. Furthermore, the report astutely points out that because states don't have objective information about teachers' effectiveness, they have "created elaborate procedural safeguards to prevent teachers from being fired for potentially arbitrary judgments of non-performance, or for being paid extra for potentially arbitrary measures of good performance." While the report reviews much that has been already iterated and reiterated, it serves as a one-shop stop on the relevant research and an important reminder of how a dearth of quality information continues to cripple intelligent debate.