Dane

Chomsky has since said that he has been misunderstood and misquoted about English spelling being optimal.

U say,
"The idea that there is something wrong with English spelling is unhelpful."
Why? And to whom? Even though that is the truth?

Perhaps u need to find out a little more how English spelling ended up in its current sorry state: http://englishspellingproblems.co.uk/html/history.html

For teachers, it is very helpful to know which spelling irregularities are the worst impediments of reading progress and which of writing

Here are some useful articles about spelling.
O’Sullivan, Olivia 2000 Reading/ Literacy Volume 34 Issue 1, pp 9-16 Understanding Spelling
Spencer, Ken 2002 Reading/ Literacy Volume 36 Issue 1, pp 16-25 English spelling and its contribution to illiteracy: word difficulty for common English words
Jane Medwell and David Wray 2007 Literacy Volume 41 Number 1 10-15 Handwriting: what do we know and what do we need to know?
Medwell, Jane and Wray, David 2008Language and Education, Volume 22, Issue 1, pp 34 -47 'Handwriting - A Forgotten Language Skill?'

Unfortunately, none of these articles is available ‘free’. I’ve got access to them which is why I can name them but I dare not send free copies out electronically.
The major references are the first two, by O’Sullivan and Spencer. The other two, both by Medwell and Wray, talk mainly about handwriting and mention spelling as something that interferes with the áutomaticity’ of writing.
It would be worth trying Google Scholar with these names to see what comes up: it can be surprisingly fruitful, as a last resort, if you pick your search terms carefully and are prepared to recast, over and over.

Here are two more articles by Ken Spencer

1999: Predicting Word Spelling Difficulty in 7 – 11 year olds, and

2007: Predicting children’s word-spelling difficulty for common English words from measures of orthographic transparency, phonemic and graphemic length and word frequency.

Both are available as downloadable pdf files from Google Scholar using search term “Ken Spencer”

Happy Hunting – there may ne more

Spencer's 2002 article can be retrieved from Google Scholar, free, using the search term "Ken Spencer" and putting 2002 in the "from" and "to" boxes.
Keep searching!

Further references:
Why is reading English so difficult?
in EL Gazette, by Professor Sine McDougall, Bournemouth University
http://mag.digitalpc.co.uk/Olive/ODE/ELGAZETTE/LandingPage/LandingPage.aspx?href=RUxHQVBENC8yMDEwLzA2LzAx&pageno=MTA.&entity=QXIwMTAwMQ..&view=ZW50aXR5

English is toughest European language to read
Radio National interview with Prof Philip Seymour, Dundee University
http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/media/seymour.php

Mashabell,

My problem is with teachers who tell children that English spelling is silly or illogical. There is nothing silly or illogical about it, as the webpage you link to touches on, English spelling is the way it is because of historical influences. Can we get away from the childish temper tantrums about 'irregularities' because the spelling aint going to change in a hurry.
Most people in Europe consider English an easy language to learn. Its grammar is easier than most european languages.

Who could imagine the Russians, whose grammar is comparible to latin, saying their language should be 'simplified' for kids?

I get a bit tired of the cultural cringe. Foreigners and kids should be taught to appreciate the rich historical tapestry that is modern English, not to think that it's somehow wrong because teachers want something easier to teach.