Former Kentucky Education Commissioner Gene Wilhoit will be coming back to Kentucky to head a national education think tank at the University of Kentucky.

The Center for Innovation in Education is being funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. UK officials did not yet know the level of funding.

According to a press release, the center will "contribute to the national education reform agenda with a focus on ensuring more states are adopting and implementing a standard definition of college and career readiness that embodies 'deeper learning' outcomes, implementing meaningful measures of those outcomes, and holding all levels of the system accountable for results."

An official announcement will be held in Frankfort at 1 p.m. Friday in the Capital Plaza Hotel ballroom with Wilhoit, Gov. Steve Beshear,

UK President Eli Capilouto and assorted legislators.

Wilhoit left Kentucky in 2006 to direct of the Council of Chief State School Officers in Washington D.C.