[jquery] Set the text in a span

This is because you have wrong selector. According to your markup, .ui-icon and .ui-icon-circle-triangle-w" should point to the same <span> element. So you should use:

$(".ui-icon.ui-icon-circle-triangle-w").html("<<");

or

$(".ui-datepicker-prev .ui-icon").html("<<");

or

$(".ui-datepicker-prev span").html("<<");