A new digital tool to test academic and behavioral skills will target students starting in kindergarten.

ACT, the organization that developed the ACT college-entrance exam, will start testing the tool in the fall. It will be available to schools starting in 2014. The tool tracks students' career interests, academic performance and progress toward goals.

One interesting element: The Associated Press said the assessment system will combine traditional testing with teacher-led projects to generate a digital score. That might allow broad comparison with a student's peers.

---

ACT said in a news release on Monday that the tool is part of a "'next-generation' system" that will attempt to provide a measure of a student's performance from early elementary school through high school.

Jon Erickson, president of ACT's education division, said the goal is to identify and address gaps in skills needed for college and the workforce. 

Schools won't be compelled to use the new tool, but Erickson said he anticipates that entire states or groups of states will choose to utilize it. ACT said the tool can be customized to include state-specific benchmarks and other performance measures.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Independence Day irony: PTSD has many vets dreading, avoiding fireworks
• T-shirt fundraiser for wildfire relief takes off
• Storms, dangerous heat to continue into July 4, and beyond
• Kansas City cop accused of sex with women in exchange for no arrest
• Video: Dual-engine failure caused jet crash

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook

The family of a 6-year-old Georgia girl is upset at police and school officials after the girl was handcuffed and taken to a police station for allegedly throwing furniture, tearing items off the walls and knocking over a shelf, which injured the principal.

"A 6-year-old in kindergarten?" Earnest Johnson, the father of Salecia Johson, asked with disbelief. "They have no business calling the police and handcuffing my child," he told WMAZ-TV.

Police defended their actions during the incident which occurred last Friday at Creekside Elementary School in Milledgeville, Ga.

---

"Our policy states that any detainee transported to our station in a patrol vehicle is to be handcuffed in the back. There is no age discrimination on that rule," Milledgeville Police Chief Dray Swicord told WMAZ-TV.

The family on Tuesday demanded that the city change its policy, the Associated Press reported, and claimed the girl was shaken up while at the police station.

The police officer called to the school later wrote that he "noticed damage to school property and possible assault of other students and staff. I made six attempts to contact her mother via telephone."

"I attempted to calm Johnson down," he wrote in his incident report. "Johnson then pulled away and began actively resisting and fighting with me."

The principal, Dianne Popp, said "a small shelf struck her in the leg while Johnson was throwing items at her," according to the police report, and that the girl "tried several times to get out of the office. Johnson was observed biting the door knob of the office and jumping on the paper shredder and attempted to break a glass frame above the shredder."

Johnson was charged with assault and damage to property, WMAZ-TV reported, but she will not have to go to court because of her age.

Johnson's mother, Constance Ruff, says her daughter was suspended until the start of the next school year.  

"She has mood swings some days, which all of us have mood swings some days," she told WMAZ-TV. "I guess that was just one of her bad days."

Asked by msnbc.com if the suspension means the girl will be held back a year, a school official had "no comment" and said the principal would have to respond to that but was not immediately available due to school testing.

The school district superintendent, Geneva Braziel, called the student's behavior "violent and disruptive," the Associated Press reported.

Video: Student booted from pageant over gay remark
Video: Boy takes wheel of school bus after driver passes out

Johnson's aunt, Candace Ruff, said the girl "might have misbehaved, but I don't think she actually misbehaved to the point that she should have been handcuffed and taken downtown to the police department."

"Call the police? Is that the first step? Or is there any other kind of intervention that can be taken to help that child," she asked.

Ruff added that the girl was by herself in a holding cell and complained about the handcuffs when she and her sister went to get her.

"She said they were really tight. She said they really hurt her wrists," Ruff told the Associated Press. "She was so shaken up when we went there to pick her up."

Swicord, the police chief, denied the child was held in a holding cell, with the Associated Press reporting that he said she was held in the department's squad room and given a Coke to try to calm her down.

This isn't the first time we've seen schoolchildren handcuffed by police. In Colorado last month, a 6th grader was handcuffed and taken to a juvenile holding facility for disobeying an assistant principal and being "argumentative and extremely rude," according to the police report.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Top US officer: 'We let the boss down' over prostitutes
• NYT: 21 percent of New Yorkers poor, study says
• Romney admits he has created a Latino problem
• Minnesota couple identified among Concordia bodies

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- A 5-year-old boy found dozens of bags of heroin inside a jacket he had taken to school and showed them to his kindergarten classmates, the school superintendent said Tuesday.

Bridgeport Superintendent Paul Vallas said he believes the boy took his stepfather's jacket to school on Monday without knowing the drugs were inside it.

 

---

"Children bring to school what they find at home," he said. 

 

Citing police, the Connecticut Post reported the boy took 50 packets of heroin out when it came time for a show-and-tell presentation. But Vallas told The Associated Press the boy only waved the heroin around after finding it in his jacket and didn't formally present the packets to the class.

The boy's stepfather, 35-year-old Santos Roman, went to the school and recovered the jacket, but police had already seized the drugs, officials said. He was arrested when he returned to the school after apparently discovering the heroin was missing, Vallas said.

The Connecticut Post reported that the boy was in custody of the state's Department of Children and Families while authorities looked for other family members.

Bail set at $100,000
Roman was arrested on risk of injury to a minor and drug charges. He appeared Tuesday in Bridgeport Superior Court and was ordered held on $100,000 bail. He wasn't available to comment from jail, and there was no phone number listed for his home address.

The Department of Children and Families placed the boy in the custody of his grandmother, even though his mother went to the school to take him home, Vallas said.

Vallas praised the reactions of the teacher who initially noticed the drugs, worth about $500 on the street, and of others involved in the response.

"I think everybody operated like clockwork," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Zimmerman's attorneys withdraw from Trayvon Martin case
• 3 school workers are winners of Mega Millions jackpot in Md.
• Seventh-graders save out-of-control bus
• Breastfeeding now a civil right in Seattle
• US sets record for warmest March

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook