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The link in the article about emphasising phonics[0] vaguely answers that question in the reverse, in terms of what was being taught instead; a podcast series from 2022 called Sold a Story[1] (transcripts also available at the link) gives a much more detailed answer about why.

[0] https://apnews.com/article/phonics-science-reading-c715dea43...

[1] https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/

They started teaching three cues instead.

According to teachers, they hate teaching phonics because their method is better because they invented it.

It's like programmers deciding to write a 3d game in Java instead of the known and functional method of c++.

Was that a Minecraft reference?

Indeed.