I am currently evaluating software for use as a part of website for parents and children engaged in home-schooling via a charter school. Right now I'm a "Drupal outsider" so I have a few questions about whether Drupal is appropriate to the task at hand.

Here's a list of features I'm looking for in a CMS to drive the site:

1 - News posting and commenting facility
2 - Discussion forums
3 - UI flexibility
4 - Active developer and user communities
5 - Flexible authentication (probably will need LDAP support)
6 - Resource ranking system
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The last item bears a bit of explanation. One of the primary functions of the website is to give parents and students the ability to post, review, rank and search for curriculum resources online. These resources will need to be categorized by both general type (college course, textbook, parent-led group, etc.) and by age appropriateness.

The goals of the site are as follows:

1 - Allow members to post, review, rank and search for curriculum resources

2 - Provide a forum where parents and students can share news, ideas and experiences

3 - Provide mostly static content about the charter school

The site is NOT intended to facilitate any web-based course delivery like Blackboard or WebCT or any other equivalent product.

Is Drupal a good solution given this set of requirements and goals? If not does anybody have any other good suggestions?

There is some funding available to provide additional development for whatever solution we finally settle on.

Many thanks for any input that experienced Drupal users can provide...