Has anyone challenged the board in CA, got their LVN and was able to use it in TX?

It's not accredited?

Most state boards of nursing require endorsement applicants to have graduated from an approved PN/VN program. LVNs who obtained their California LVN licensure by challenging the board never graduated from an approved program; therefore, other state boards of nursing will usually not grant them licensure.

Every single state except CA requires that people be graduates of an approved nursing program in order to be eligible for licensure. Only CA has its own special paths to licensure, the CNA challenge method for LVN and the 30-unit option for RNs. In both those cases, individuals licensed via those methods are not eligible for licensure by endorsement in any other state, because they haven't met the other states' minimum requirements for licensure.

CA was also the last state to still have certificate programs for nurse practitioners (shoot, they might still have some, I don't know), long after the rest of the country had gone to requiring an MSN for licensure. People who completed those programs were eligible for licensure and could work as NPs in California, but they were not eligible for national certification, and they couldn't get licensed to practice (as an NP) in any other state.

People who choose these alternate paths to licensure are only able to work in CA.

While you're correct about CA, I thought there were states as well that granted licensure as an LPN based of military experience that was deemed equivalent? Isn't that an "alternate" path too?

But OP, if you did the challenge method as a CNA to LVN, then I very highly doubt any other state will endorse your CA LVN license into their state. You just don't meet the requirements in place for most, if not all the other states. Until you graduate from an approved program, then your LVN license will probably only ever be good in CA.

Oklahoma used to allow some categories of military medics/corpsmen/(whatever the other titles might be) to challenge the NCLEX-PN, but, looking at their BON website now, I no longer see any specific mention of that (as there used to be, several years ago). I know that a lot of states have created special LPN programs that fast-track returning military personnel with military medical training (but they still have to graduate from the LPN program to be eligible for licensure). If there are states that allow this, I'd be glad to hear about it (I don't want to be giving out bad information, and would be glad to be corrected).

In Florida you can still challenge the LPN exam if you've completed certain RN classes but not graduated from a LPN or RN program.

Oh, that's right -- I was wrong; I forgot about that "loophole" in some states. In those cases, that is allowed because the state BON has determined that the amount of education in the RN program is the equivalent of completing an LPN program. Thanks for the reminder!

BUT - you are still correct. I don't think you can endorse the challenged LPN license to another state.

CA even warns applicants on their website that the CA license obtained in this manner will not be honored in other states.