The NCAA is close to completing the next stage of its important work on academic reform. Media attention, however, has been focused on the "business" of college sports, especially the issues of conference realignment and postseason football. While these issues are significant for Division I-A institutions, we should not lose sight of the critical agenda for reform. This reform agenda has been two years in the making, and it is making excellent progress.

In Division I, the membership has worked effectively to implement an ambitious two-stage reform plan based on enhanced initial-eligibility and progress-toward-degree standards, and an incentives/disincentives package that will better measure student-athletes' academic progress and hold institutions accountable for meeting those measurements. The enhanced eligibility standards already are in place, and the Board of Directors is poised to complete its work on the incentives/disincentives package in April.

Similarly, the Division III Presidents Council has coordinated a membership-wide effort to develop a nine-proposal reform package that will come to a vote at the Convention in January. These proposals, too, represent a two-year effort -- aided by extensive membership dialogue and input -- to align practices at member institutions more closely with the Division III philosophy.

Some may believe that academic reform is so far under way that it does not warrant as much attention as the business issues, but it is important to refocus on the academic standards in order to complete the effort. The final goal, though close, is not yet achieved.

As we near completion of the reform movement, there still are lingering concerns about the consequences. There are those who argue that by increasing academic standards we also will increase the instances of academic fraud. That is a bad argument. By the same logic, lower standards would produce less academic fraud, and no academic standards would equate to no academic fraud. The objection simply misses the point. The point is that we raise the standards so that prospective student-athletes come prepared to enter the university and are capable of graduating and in fact continue their participation in intercollegiate athletics if they stay on track. And if there is academic fraud, we will assure that we thoroughly investigate and sanction when appropriate. The threat of additional academic fraud means that we just need to be more diligent and redouble our monitoring and enforcement efforts. It certainly does not mean that we should back off of academic standards.

Some people also would prefer that we move more toward the professional model of athletics and be less interested in whether student-athletes perform academically. The opposite is true -- we should worry a great deal about student-athletes' academic performance. The education of our students at all three divisions is what our universities are all about -- it is their mission. To say student-athlete academic progress does not matter or that tougher standards will make winning more difficult or increase the possibility of academic fraud misses the point of why student-athletes are in school. The central idea is to provide genuine opportunities for student-athletes to succeed. We should focus on the improvement of graduation rates, which will occur when we have implemented the new standards and developed the metrics to more accurately measure progress. The Division I Board of Directors will be considering those metrics -- the proposed Academic Progress Rate and the Graduation Success Rate -- at its April meeting.

At this point, the only roadblock to completing academic reform is neglect. We need to complete the race. We may be ahead now, but unless we keep up the momentum, we will compromise the good progress we have made.

It is not good enough to get almost there. You do not get credit for climbing Mt. Everest if you stop 200 yards short. I believe we are at a point in our climb that we should focus our attention on the summit -- on completing academic reform. To do otherwise will lead to a loss of our footing.

Myles Brand is president of the NCAA.