How spelling changes
Dictionaries are the key to official spelling change. Dictionaries can only describe changes in the living language, but they prescribe spelling, regardless of how most people spell.
The French Academy last year authorised 6000 variant spellings for their dictionary, for the sake of literacy, and the people will eventually decide which to keep.
Many of our current spellings are only a few hundred years old; before that, many were simpler.
For example, frend, bisy, ernest, fether, garanty, gest, highte, huni, iland, lorel, lether, parlement, stomak, tyme (not thyme), and tunge were all Middle English spellings.
It is ignorance of history to believe that our spelling does not change.
It is not ‘dumbing down’ to remove recent spelling anomalies that trip up the educationally disadvantaged. More people will be able to read, and reading raises IQ through more general knowledge. More people are also employable.