MetzyMom, I think you are a rare jewel. I have been involved with PTA/PTSA for 9 years, and it is my experience that the average member has no earthly idea of what it is all about, much less what types of things the State and National PTAs are involved in, despite our best efforts to inform them. In fact, a very high percentage don't even realize what their own PTA/PTSA is doing at their child's school. I offer as proof of this the NUMEROUS times I have heard the following comments: "I can't join PTA because I work during the day," and "How much do PTA Board members get paid?"
Furthermore, I always have to be sure my husband is in the audience at PTA meetings with instructions to please step up to the plate if no one is forthcoming when we need a motion to approve a budget or to move along some PTA business. Even the parents who attend the meetings don't seem to want to "get involved" enough to do that much. In fact, they wouldn't even show up for the meetings if we didn't set them up just preceding a school event in which their children are participating (sort of like holding the performance hostage until the PTA business is complete).
My point is that while some groups may switch from PTAs to PTOs because they have become disenfranchised with the National PTA's political efforts, I think the majority do so for more local control over the group and in order to avoid sending so much money in dues out of the school. (In my area, the schools themselves and various extracurricular groups do so much fund-raising that PTAs/PTOs have a very difficult time raising money.)
Besides, while the National and State PTA stances on certain political issues may rub some members the wrong way (say, school vouchers, for example), it would be difficult not to agree with some of the PTA's political stances since their mission is to try to do good things for children and education.
And, if you do disagree with something specific for which the National or State PTA is lobbying, it is your right and obligation as a member to make your voice heard. Write them and be sure your group is represented during votes. As a non-profit organization, the PTA MUST be responsive to the wishes of its membership as a whole.
Of course, if you disagree strongly with something the PTA supports or with a majority of its tenets, then it becomes time to disassociate from the PTA.
Either way, PTA or PTO, the overall goal is the same. I think all groups that work so hard to help children and schools, in whatever way they are able, are to be commended.