Before Cary Booker was hired for a top state education job in New Jersey, he co-founded a Tennessee charter school that was described as a “clusterf---” and ordered to close in 2016 for poor performance.

Gov. Phil Murphy doesn’t seem to mind.

The Democratic governor on Wednesday defended his administration’s hiring of Cary Booker, the older brother of Democratic U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, to a $150,000 job leading the state’s division of Early Childhood Education.

“I’m going to quote the great (football) coach Bill Parcells," Murphy said Wednesday in his first public comments about the hiring. “When he cut, I think, a former first round draft pick who had gotten there before he did, he said, ‘I only know what I see.'"

It’s unclear when Parcells said that or in what context. But what Murphy sees, he said, is that Cary Booker has done outstanding work on the governor’s campaign policy team in 2017, as a paid policy advisor and, since June, as an assistant state education commissioner.

“I credit a lot of the smart policies that we have and continue to pursue to Cary’s work,” Murphy said as other top Democrats have remained silent about the hiring.

NJ Advance Media reported last week that Cary Booker has no experience working in early childhood education aside from his time co-founding and leading Omni Prep Academy, a Tennessee charter school that “continually failed to meet the most minimal of performance standards," according to state records. The school provided teachers with no textbooks or curriculum when it opened and initially struggled to make payroll, leading several teachers to quit after missed paychecks in 2011.

But the governor’s administration has brushed aside concerns raised by Cary Booker’s former employees, who told NJ Advance Media the hiring appears to be political, special treatment for the brother of an influential senator turned presidential candidate.

Later Wednesday, Murphy was asked on his call-in radio show about a handful of controversial hirings in his administration. The caller specifically mentioned the story about Booker.

“I’ve got no insight into that or how it happened,” the governor said on WBGO public radio.

But Murphy stressed that Booker has “contributed mightily” to his administration’s efforts to improve education in New Jersey.

“Nobody bats a thousand," he said about Booker.

Legislative leaders and education groups, including the state’s largest teachers union, have so far stayed away from issue, neither criticizing nor supporting the move. Several declined to speak about Cary Booker or did not return messages seeking comment.

Former Omni Prep employees told NJ Advance Media that Cary Booker’s time at the charter school shouldn’t have been overlooked when he was hired in New Jersey.

“The only reason he got that job is his brother,” said Donnie Houston, a former principal who said Cary Booker let him go for financial reasons during Omni Prep’s inaugural year. “I don’t know who would entrust him with that kind of authority, autonomy and responsibility."

NJ Advance Media staff writer Brent Johnson contributed to this report.

Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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