Does the difficulty of state RN licensure vary from state to state?

[BIGT68]

I graduated nursing school in May and took my state boards one time and passed, thank God. Most of the people in my class passed their boards the first time, but the people we all expected not to pass the first time ended up not passing, some students took their RN boards up to 3 times in our state, and then moved to other states and took state RN boards and passed in those states on their first attempt. Many of them hadn't studied in months and had almost gave up on passing altogether, so I'm wondering if there is a varying level of difficultly per state for the RN licensure examination? Please give me any opinions or feedback you've got, thanks in advance

[Horseshoe, BSN, RN]

They physically moved to another state, I was talking to some veteran nurse friends, they said that when they took boards that the questions were in fact pulled from the same question bank, but states like Kansas and California made their nurses get a higher percentage of questions correct above the national average to practice in their state. The state of Texas and Oklahoma have some of the lowest requirements in the country. For example my friend couldn't pass boards in Kansas, so she moved to Texas she took it there and passed, now she is moving to California and has to retake boards because the requirements by the state of Texas to get licensure in there state is much lower than California, and if she decided to not test in California and just come back to Kansas, she would have to take boards as well to practice in our state, because once again, Texas has a much lower standard. Sorry to took me so long to reply, glad I finally found some info

The Passing standard for NCLEX is set by the NCSBN (National Council of State Boards of Nursing). All US BONs use this same minimum passing standard for NCLEX. Your "veteran nurse friends" are wrong.

Who Has the Responsibility for Setting the Standard?

With regard to licensure, it is clearly the governmental body that has the authority to issue the license. For nursing in the United States, this responsibility belongs to the individual states. Often, state statutes use language that delegates this authority to a state regulatory board or to another regulatory organization. For entry-level nursing, all 60 boards of nursing have elected to use the standard set by NCSBN.

Why would states choose to use a standard selected by NCSBN?

The answer lies in the economies of scale4 and the portabilityof test results. Because setting the standard is important, considerable resources should be expended to arrive at an informed decision. If each state or territory were individually responsible for these activities, the cost for these activities would be incurred repeatedly for very similar products. When there is a national test for jurisdictional licensing, then the cost of test development (including standard setting) is shared rather than being repeatedly incurred by each jurisdiction. If the test reflects the same content across the nation and the same passing standard is used, then test results can be portable across jurisdictions.

Although each state board of nursing is a member of NCSBN, each state is also free to set whatever requirements it sees fit for licensing nurses. Each state is always free to use a different standard for its jurisdiction, but such an action would result in state-specific test results and the jurisdiction would be responsible for the costs of developing, implementing,and defending their state-specific standard.

To facilitate the acceptance of the NCSBN standard by the states, NCSBN has purposely created a line of accountability from the NCSBN Board of Directors that sets the NCSBN standard to the states that have the power to license. More specifically, states typically have laws that establish a board of nursing and charge the members of that board with overseeing the nurse licensing process. All Americanboards of nursing are members of NCSBN. This membership is voluntary and each member board of nursing is permitted to send two delegates to the NCSBN Delegate Assembly to vote on issues and policies and to elect members to the NCSBN Board of Directors. The bylaws of NCSBN delegate the authority to set the NCLEX passing standard to the Board of Directors. This establishes a direct line from the state through the board of nursing through the delegates to the Board of Directors that sets the standard.

https://ncsbn.org/ReEvaluating_RN_Pass_Stand.pdf

From the California Board of Nursing web site regarding endorsement in California of licensed nurses from other states wishing to practice in California:

Licensure by Endorsement

To qualify for endorsement (reciprocity) into California as a RN, you must hold a current and active license in another state or Canada, have completed an educational program meeting all California requirements, and have passed National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-RN) or the State Board Test Pool Examination (SBTPE). The Canadian Comprehensive Examination is not acceptable. If you do not possess these qualifications, you do not qualify for licensure by endorsement and must apply to take the examination instead.

Note that there is NO MENTION of other states having substandard passing scores compared to California. Either you passed this national exam or you didn't.

Board of Registered Nursing - Licensure by Endorsement