The English language contains many irregularities and inconsistencies in respect to phonetics and its relation to spelling, consider the letters 'ough' and how they can be pronounced in so many different ways: (oʊ/ as in “though”, /uː/ as in “through”, /ʌf/ as in “rough”, /ɒf/ as in “cough”, /ɔː/ as in “thought”, /aʊ/ as in “bough”, /ə/ as in “thorough). We only have 26 letters in the alphabet and yet we have to use these to represent more sounds.
For instance, why do we need silent letters? Consider how many words that stem from other languages, such as the word honour differ from phonetics. The American version of the word honour is honor which removes the French influence from the language and thus making it more consistent with phonetics.
The problems in the language derive from its historical context, Old English was pronounced very much as it is written but due to influence from many invaders (Scandinavian, Norman, etc...) and of course the great vowel shift the language began to lose its consistency, it not longer adhered to a strict set of phonetical rules and became much more ambiguous.
The problem with the inconsistencies in the orthography of the language means it is much more difficult to learn (for native people this means we spend much more time in the classroom teaching literacy skills), indeed even literate people often display difficulty spelling words that they are unfamiliar with because of so many variations in the rules. Spelling has become so ambiguous that its lack of adherence to any strict rules means it is nothing more than a memorisation game.
A spelling reform would focus on the consistency between phonetics and spelling, focusing on the orthography of the language to make sure it can meet a strict set of rules rather than having wide variation and ambiguity would increase people's ability to spell and make it easier to spell words we're unfamiliar with.
So, to repeat the question in the title: should the English language undergo a spelling reform?