The halftime report on Penn State’s performance under the NCAA’s Sandusky sanctions is encouraging — not so much for restoring football scholarships and postseason bowl opportunities as for acknowledging what the university has done to address the cultural and administrative lapses that enabled the child-abuse scandal in the first place.

On Monday, the NCAA announced that the football team would be eligible for postseason play this year and its full complement of scholarships would be restored for 2015. The $60 million fine remains in place, but the NCAA said it would accept a state court decision stipulating that the money be spent on child-abuse prevention and awareness programs in Pennsylvania. The NCAA had proposed to use it nationally.

While many people see this as backpedaling by the NCAA, the decision to revisit Penn State’s progress annually is reasonable. It’s part of the consent decree the trustees signed two years ago.

Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, hired to monitor Penn State’s compliance, credited the university for following through on nearly all the recommendations of the agreement and the Louis Freeh report, which served as the basis for the NCAA’s penalties.

“In light of Penn State’s responsiveness to its obligations and the many improvements it has instituted, I believe these student-athletes should have the opportunity to play in the postseason should they earn it on the field this year,” Mitchell said.

Is the NCAA retreating? U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent called the easing of sanctions an acknowledgment that the NCAA overreached in the Penn State case and went beyond its authority.

Certainly the retention of the $60 million for Pennsylvania programs is a victory for the state’s taxpayers and child welfare, but it’s important to keep focusing on the big picture. The goal all along has been to use sanctions as a lever to change a power structure that worked against the rights of innocent children — to make amends, to set new standards for child protection, and to allow the Penn State football program to find its way back. The easing of sanctions works to this end, without discrediting the seriousness of Jerry Sandusky’s crimes and the injury to his victims.

True, there are legal issues to be sorted out, which may well alter the way we view collateral culpability for the Sandusky crimes. Former President Graham Spanier and former administrators Gary Schultz and Tim Curley are awaiting criminal trials. The family of Joe Paterno and others have sued the NCAA, arguing it had no standing to bring the sanctions. For many of the Penn State faithful, nothing short of the restoration of the beloved coach’s reputation and legacy will begin to make things right.

Time, it turns out, is allowing for growth and healing in the Sandusky aftermath, on a quicker pace than initially set forth. That’s a good sign. For those who can only see the clock ticking on a diminished football program, consider that Penn State has endured two-plus years of sanctions. The known victims of Sandusky suffered at different intervals over 13 years — from 1998 to 2011, the period in which Penn State football victories were vacated — and it seems likely their recovery will extend well beyond the sanction era and possibly the jail term of the perpetrator himself.

A little perspective, please.