BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- Your kids could be spending less time on summer vacation and more time hitting the books, that's if President Barack Obama has his way.

Obama thinks kids are not spending enough time in the classroom, and said it's putting them at a disadvantage when compared to students in other countries.

Obama is suggesting schools to add time to class, by either lengthening the school day or cutting summer vacation short.

"We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day," Obama said. "That calendar may have once made sense, but today, it puts us at a competitive disadvantage."

Obama recognized that adding more school days may not be a "wildly popular", idea, it will not only create a better education but it will give kids a safe place to go.

Jill Blackbury, who has a son who attends Stockdale elementary, is against adding more class time.

"Sometime I volunteer in my children's classroom and they have a long enough day. They keep going and going and I think it would be very stressful for the children and the teachers," she said.

But parent Pamela Bonner thinks it would be a great idea.

"I would love it, it's awesome. I'm a working mom and the fact that I have to stop in the middle of my day to pick up the kids and it's not worth paying for day care because we are talking about an hour, an hour and half difference," she said.

Students in the United States currently spend 180 days a year in the classroom, 63 days behind Japan, whose students spend the most amount of days.

Advocates of the proposal are pushing for a 200-day school year.

But more time in the classroom means spending more money.

Brad Barns, president of the Bakersfield Elementary Teachers Association, thinks going through with the plan could be difficult, especially due to the state budget shortfall.

Barns estimates that an extra 15 minutes of school a day would cost around $7 billion a year in California alone.