Grose says a lot of his colleagues are dismayed over the NCLB decisions coming out of Washington, D.C. These decisions seem to reflect little input from classroom teachers, and many in this small central Texas school district think there’s nothing they can do about the law.

Grose isn’t buying it—and neither are the 10,000 other AFT e-Activists who this year generated an “NCLB: Let’s Get It Right” petition that AFT executive vice president Antonia Cortese personally delivered to Capitol Hill.

“Teachers for too long have been their own silent majority,” says Susan Grombacher, a teacher and e-Activist from Toledo, Ohio. “We accept so much because we think we can’t get anything else.”

Grombacher says change through dialogue is possible. And she stresses that teachers have a special, indispensable role to play in making sure politicians get a true picture about what is happening in the schools. “We need to contact [lawmakers] on a regular basis,” she says. “It’s not enough to just wait four years until a presidential election. It’s got to be all the time if you really want them to sit up and take notice.”

“E-Activists let politicians know we are watching and listening,” says Grose, who uses the union’s political action network to voice his opinion on issues that range from pensions and Social Security to vouchers and school funding. And Val Jack will tell you that the e-Activist program offers a speedy, online link to important legislative news and analysis, along with a user-friendly way for union members to communicate to lawmakers and track their votes on legislation. But new technology isn’t what attracted Jack, a retired school secretary and union activist from Oregon who for most of her life “didn’t like doing political stuff.”

She says it took years of union involvement to change her perspective. Today, she quotes labor pioneer Walter Reuther, the former president of the United Automobile Workers union, to explain her involvement in the e-Activist program: “There is a direct relation between the bread box and the ballot box—what the union fights for and wins at the bargaining table can be taken away in the legislative halls.”

There’s nothing hypothetical about that warning, Jack says. She speaks of friends and relatives who are reeling from anti-worker pension and healthcare legislation that’s being promulgated at the federal and state levels. Today’s political climate tells her that silence is not an option.

“My phone call, letter or e-mail, combined with those of my co-workers and union brothers and sisters, could make the difference,” adds Jack. She says involvement in the e-Activist program helps broaden her perspective on a range of political issues she otherwise might have ignored. And Jack enjoys the opportunity to revise and tailor the draft letters  e-Activists receive on key issues; that process helps her sharpen the arguments she takes to her elected representatives.

“The basic [e-Activist] letter is a jumping-off point, getting a framework for some of my own thoughts,” says Jack, who has communicated with her representatives on such issues as school funding, pensions and healthcare. Without the resource, “I probably would never have written letters.”

Jack is not alone in using the AFT e-Activist network as a jumping-off point for political engagement. There are currently more than 26,000 e-Activists—a 500 percent increase in just one year. These AFT members have generated more than 50,000 letters to Congress on a variety of issues. AFT legislative director Tor Cowan says the fast-growing ranks of e-Activists are “a testament to members’ desire to participate in the political process.”

And many e-Activists have broadened their involvement by joining the AFT’s Activists for Congressional Education (ACE) program, which allows frontline union members to sit down for regular, frank discussions with their elected officials.

To join the e-Activist ranks, visit www.aft.org/e-activist.