Did you add a reference to jQuery?
I tested in JSFiddle and it works: demo
HTML:
<input name="Email" id="Email" type="text" placeholder="Email" data-val-required="field is required" data-val="true" value=""/>
<input type="button" id="test" value="test" />
JavaScript:
$(document).ready(function () {
$("#test").click(function () {
alert($("#Email").val());
});
});