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I didn't see any reason why these differences might not be genetic: genes cause changes in the brain which cause changes in academic achievement which cause socio-economic status.

It would be interesting to see studies that isolated the effects of genes and environment.

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There are a number of natural experiments that researchers have used to examine this question:

[1]A study looking at the performance of Korean-American adopted children relative to their siblings: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10894

[2]The impact of various welfare programs on student achievement: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3208322/

> It would be interesting to see studies that isolated the effects of genes and environment.

The colorado adoption project can be good source of that type of information, in my limit understanding, example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7755514

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